Fall Upgrade - 2008
Feature Guide
The adCenter Fall Upgrade offers many of the convenient, time-saving improvements you’ve been asking for, as well
as some new Microsoft Advertising design elements that lend a welcome new look to the adCenter user interface.
Review this guide to learn more about new adCenter features that give you:
A clearer, more efficient editorial experience to help your approved ads and keywords go live faster
More control and flexibility as you manage your campaigns
Options to easily create multiple account users and assign user permissions
Fall Upgrade - 2008
Feature Guide
A clearer, more efficient editorial experience to help your approved ads and keywords go live faster
Save time with faster editorial reviews
We can now review your ads and keywords more
quickly, and your approved ads and keywords can
go live faster than before.
Better help with disapproved ads and
keywords
If your ad or keyword was disapproved, it’s now
easier to learn why. You get more detailed
information in adCenter Help, as well as a direct
link to the adCenter page where you can update
and resubmit the ad or keyword for approval.
This adCenter update should prove to be a real
time-saver.
2 | For more details, go to the Microsoft adCenter Online Support Community
Fall Upgrade - 2008
Feature Guide
Know when dynamic text causes your ads to exceed
character limits
If you use dynamic text to customize your ads, adCenter
now displays a keyword status of Error if your
{keyword}, {param2}, or {param3} dynamic text
variables cause your ad title or ad text to exceed
character limits. If you rest the pointer on the Error
status, you can see the reason for this error as well as
preview the ad that contains the error. Once you
understand the error, it’s easier to update your dynamic
text appropriately.
Independent editorial decisions for ads and keywords
Your ads and keywords are now reviewed independently,
and their editorial statuses are no longer associated. This
improvement allows faster editorial decisions on your ads
and keywords, and helps you clearly understand whether
your ad or keyword has been approved.
3 | For more details, go to the Microsoft adCenter Online Support Community
Fall Upgrade - 2008
Feature Guide
More control and flexibility as you manage your campaigns
Pause and resume the delivery of your ads
and keywords
You can now pause individual ads and
keywords at any time and then resume them
whenever you want. With the pause and
resume feature no longer limited to campaigns
and ad groups, you have much greater control
over your advertising efforts.
For example, pausing and resuming ads and
keywords lets you:
1. Temporarily stop delivering time-
sensitive ads for a holiday or a
weekend sale, and then resume ad
delivery precisely when you want it.
2. Create ads and keywords for a future
promotion and then pause them until
they are ready to be delivered.
3. Perform manual A/B comparison
testing.
4 | For more details, go to the Microsoft adCenter Online Support Community
Fall Upgrade - 2008
Feature Guide
More options to target your customers by location
Now adCenter makes it easier for you to target your ad
groups to the customers you’d like to reach. In select
locations, you can zero in on countries/regions,
states/provinces, metro areas, or even (in some cases)
cities and towns within metro areas.
We’ve added smart, easy-to-use features, such as:
1. A tree view that makes it easy for you to find
the specific location that you want to target.
2. An Available locations search that can save
you time by displaying a list of targeting options
that match your query.
3. An embedded Virtual Earth™ map to help you
visualize your targeted locations.
Remember, you can still set an incremental bid (made
in 10% increments above your keyword bid) to
increase the chance that your ad is seen by customers
in your targeted location.
5 | For more details, go to the Microsoft adCenter Online Support Community
Fall Upgrade - 2008
Feature Guide
Navigate in adCenter faster than ever before
Save time while managing your campaigns in adCenter,
thanks to system enhancements that now make your
adCenter pages load more quickly.
Get keyword bid suggestions and performance
estimates for your content ads
U.S. customers can learn more about the performance of
content ads by using features that were previously
available only for search ads. Now, on your Keywords
page, you can help boost the performance of your content
ads by viewing keyword performance estimates for your
content ads and updating your keyword bids for a top
position on content pages.
1. To automatically replace each current keyword bid
with a bid that is estimated to help boost your ad to
the best position, click Update all bids for
position 1 on the Keywords page.
2. To manually update your content keyword bids
(max. CPC), click Update performance estimates
to see how your keywords are likely to perform with
the new bid price.
6 | For more details, go to the Microsoft adCenter Online Support Community
Fall Upgrade - 2008
Feature Guide
View your ad performance at a glance
Now you can quickly see the performance of your
ads by viewing the totals for search, content (U.S.
only), and all of your ads on the Ads table—without
running a performance report.
In addition, we’ve updated the Ads table with a new
Ad ID column that displays the identification
number of the ad you are reviewing.
Quickly perform key campaign tasks
As you manage your campaigns, ad groups, ads, and
keywords, note the new Pause, Resume, Delete,
and Submit (available on the Ad groups page)
buttons that allow you to perform essential
campaign-management tasks. The buttons are larger
and easier find, similar to other online advertising
programs.
7 | For more details, go to the Microsoft adCenter Online Support Community
Fall Upgrade - 2008
Feature Guide
Options to easily create multiple account users and assign user permissions
Create multiple account users
If you previously were able to create only one user
for your adCenter account, now you can create and
define roles for as many as 15 users on your
account. You can do so on the new Users tab on the
Accounts & Billing page.
If you were already able to create multiple users for
your adCenter account, now you will notice updated
account user role names that are easier for you to
understand and keep organized.
These account user role improvements will help you
manage your account settings and user permissions
more efficiently. The improvements also make it
easier for you to ensure that your users have the
appropriate adCenter access permissions for the
work they perform.
8 | For more details, go to the Microsoft adCenter Online Support Community
Fall Upgrade - 2008
Feature Guide
More ways to learn about new
adCenter features
If you enjoy learning about new adCenter
features, now you can be the first to get
the news. We’ve added a New features
link to the top of each adCenter page, as
well as a What’s new section on your
home page that lists the three most
important adCenter updates. Both link to
further information about our new features
and how to understand and use them.
9 | For more details, go to the Microsoft adCenter Online Support Community