MSN Shopping on Start.com
October 15, 2005
As MSN is just gearing up with option after option, I’ve been watching them pretty closely.
MSN Shopping is now availble from the start.com page.
More from the MSN Shopping Blog
MSN Shopping on Start.com
October 15, 2005
As MSN is just gearing up with option after option, I’ve been watching them pretty closely.
MSN Shopping is now availble from the start.com page.
More from the MSN Shopping Blog
MSN AdCenter Not Hackable
October 9, 2005
There has been a lot of talk based on this information from MSN:
From: Yusuf Mehdi
As you know, we launched MSN adCenter –our next generation advertising platform — in France and Singapore last month. This was an important first step to delivering our global vision to connect advertisers to consumers in a more meaningful way.
Now, as we prepare to launch the US pilot of MSN adCenter, we need your help in getting your friends and family to apply to participate in the self-service offering for small-to-medium businesses. This pilot represents a unique opportunity for small and medium businesses to be among the first to experience the more powerful tools and wide-ranging benefits of MSN adCenter. Our paid search offering will help advertisers:
Learn by accessing comprehensive data to plan more strategic campaigns,
Connect by using advanced demographics to target the right audience at the right place and time, and
Refine by making meaningful changes on the fly with features for greater flexibility and control.
If you know a business-owner who would be interested in advertising their business on MSN Search, please forward this email to them and encourage them to apply to participate in the US Pilot by completing our online registration form at http://advertising.msn.com/adCenterPilot/89620.asp.
Please note that entry in the US pilot is by invitation only. We will select participants on a rolling basis from those you refer and who express interest. During the US pilot, MSN adCenter will be delivering text-based advertisements on up to 25 percent of MSN Search traffic; the remaining traffic will continue to be served through our partnership with Yahoo.
I hope that you will support this important initiative by sharing this information with your friends and family. We look forward to serving their advertising needs and gathering their valuable feedback on our products and services.
thanks,
Yusuf
Evidently a lot of people think they’ve found a hack to get into the program. The ‘hack’ is actually a self-serve signup for Signapore. US is invite only. It’s a great program so far, although it does look like a pilot. There are cosmetic issues and a few rough bumps along the way, but all in all, it has been quite successful for us in the ultimate terms: conversions.
MSN to offer a large variety of support.
October 8, 2005
I’ve heard grumblings lately about MSN support, or lack of it. These grumblings are never tied directly to agencies, so it’s difficult to tell if these are from individuals who are small spenders, or if they are large agencies who don’t want their comments tied to their company.
I often like to play devil’s advocate, just to see both sides of an issue examined. My experience with MSN has been much different than the grumblings that I’ve heard around the ‘net.
First off, my initial experience with them wasn’t great. I had a few very productive early encounters with MSN, the sales office and the PPC team.
When I went to make my first major MSN buy, my sales rep had gone on leave and not informed me. I had 2 proposals sitting on the tables that were never responded to.
A few emails with the New York sales office quickly fixed all that. Within a scant three days, I not only had a new rep, they came to the office to visit, learn what we were doing, and to help us get started with MSN.
The proposal offers went smoothly. Due to the sales office having to send all the proposals through QC and to receive traffic estimates, it took about a week to have proposals finalized. In the offline world, this would be considered a very acceptable and quick timeline, in the online world, often we look at hours and not days. I was satisfied with the process; however, I can see those who only deal with the online world thinking it was a bit slow.
The IOs (insertion orders) went smoothly, and within a week the ads were live on MSN.
Total time, 17 days from meeting to live ads. That’s a pretty good timeline considering the scope of the 4 projects I launched with them.
As time grew near the October self serve launch date, we then had an online meeting with the MSN team who would be assisting in our account. The meeting consisted of our Search Engine Marketing Specialist; two vertical advertising specialists; a technical advisor; and our sales rep - a nicely assembled team.
Two weeks after that, our Search Engine Marketing Specialist flew out to Chicago from Redmond and we enjoyed a nice lunch while talking about the MSN offerings and just internet life in general. Thirty minutes after the meeting, we were invited to beta test the MSN API.
Yes, MSN is launching with an API. It’s in beta, untested, but when MSN launches to the public, the API will be QCed and ready for public distribution.
Both our sales reps, and our marketing specialist, have been very accommodating, helpful, and friendly over the past few months. Their support is very akin to how helpful Overture can be, with the exception MSN realizes they’re small, realizes they’re growing, realizes they don’t have a huge market share - but they are determined to become a player.
It was interesting listing to those who work for MSN who were humble. Often search engine reps can be a bit standoffish as they know they have what you want and sometimes make you work for it. In my experience, MSN has been the total opposite of that. They realize what they need, how to empower SEMs, what their current place is, and where they wish to go.
The entire MSN advertising process has been very seamless and very effective to date. I hope that as MSN grows, their PPC launches to the public, and their advertiser list grows that they continue to offer this level of support.
If they do - by virtue of support alone - they will be a major force in the PPC arena.
MSN part of Microsoft or its own brand?
September 9, 2005
Like many SEMs, I receive weekly phone calls at home and the office from MSN headhunters. For a year and a half, they’ve been calling weekly (different offices, different phone numbers - although the Philly office seems the most aggressive) and weekly I’ve been telling them no.
Over a casual conversation with MSN about the new PPC product, they asked me how I hire new employees. With a coy smile, I told them that those are secrets I can’t reveal. MSN and Google are the largest hiring competitors in Chicago, and they’re two companies I don’t want to go head to head with for new employees.
Then I brought up the headhunter phone calls, and the fact that they’re much more aggressive than I am - they should be able to recruit satellite office workers. The MSN guys told me that their biggest need was customer support. They’re trying to figure out how to work customer support for thousands, and potentially millions of new self serve advertisers for their PPC offering.
Then my absolute favorite MSN quote occurred. One of the MSN guys, who I’ll let remain anonymous, turned to me and said, “When it’s all said and done, we’re still part of Microsoft. We have no idea how to do customer support. Our PPC product is done. We like it. We’re ready to roll it out. We can’t until we figure out customer support.”
What an admission; and a very honest one at that.
With this attitude, which has been echoed by many MSN employees of: “We know what we’re good at; we know where our weaknesses lie; we’re going to fix the weaknesses before we go to market with a search engine marketing product.”
Like most people, I’ve had endless conversations with a Microsoft employee which went something like ‘I know my computer is plugged in. Yes, I know I’m online. Yes, I’ve already read the help files on your website, stop searching them and give me the next tier of customer support.”
With the very different attitudes between MSN and Microsoft about customer support, product offerings, etc - MSN is going to market with almost its own brand apart from Microsoft. It might be owned by the same company - but the attitude that is prevalent among the employees gives one an entirely different feel when dealing with them.
It’s a very humble attitude - one I’m not akin to hearing from Microsoft.
Let’s hope this trend continues. It would be nice to see one humble Search Engine on the web.
I was having a casual conversation with MSN about customer support. This stemmed from the weekly phone calls I receive from their headhunters wishing me to apply at MSN. You’d think after telling them no for a year and a half, someone would get the hint.
Why MSN Choose France & Singapore
July 1, 2005
MSN has announced that they are launching a beta test of their PPC product in Singapore and France. I had a chance to talk to MSN about why they choose those two geographic areas, and the answers were quite interesting.
They choose France because, according to MSN, there are a total of 8 agencies that serve the entire country. This means they can have only 8 points of contact, yet reach everyone online who uses MSN in France. I was surprised there aren’t more active SEMs in France, but this seemed quite a logical reason to choose that particular country.
The other area they’re launching the MSN PPC is Singapore. This was done for a highly pragmatic reason - English targeting. They wanted to test out how their product works with the English language, its idiosyncrasies, etc. By choosing Singapore, they’re only opening themselves up to a small population while tweaking the system to handle any language issues.
MSN has an interesting offering on the horizon, slated for release in q1 of 06; there are many waiting in anticipation for their chance to see how the 3rd player in the PPC arena serves their search engine marketing needs.
MSN quietly looks for SEM community assistance
June 25, 2005
MSN realizes the power of blogs and online forums. Places like Search Engine Watch, Threadwatch, and Webmaster World have a large audience reach where every topic related to webmasters is discussed.
These forums can help shape the perception of distribution properties, advertising platforms, and affiliate programs.
The forum I spend the most time on, Webmaster World (co-moderator of the AdWords forum) has two Google employees who regularly post very helpful answers about Google. Specifically, the AdWords forum has a member who goes by AdwordsAdvisor who visits the forum almost daily to offer helpful advice and feedback.
Yahoo has a few individuals who post about Yahoo search and other products, by the member who goes by OvertureRep is sporadic at best, having only 23 posts in 13 months. While I enjoy the direct connection I have to Overture through our current rep channels, this has tarnished their online reputation as being a very standoffish company, as their support to smaller clients can often be very slow or completely ignored; and often these forums help the smaller advertisers get their questions answered, and allows for others with similar problems to find the help necessary in the future as the answers become permanent webpages.
MSN has been watching this over time. They have an individual who sometimes posts in the MSN forum named MSNdude. However, he often jumps into a thread, and then disappears (like he only checks in once a month) when other questions come up. I had a chance to meet MSNdude at one of the conferences, and he did wish to post more often, but due to job and time constraints, wasn’t often able to visit these forums regularly.
More News about MSN PPC
February 3, 2005
In January, during SES in which Justin and I both regularly speak, we met with the MSN PPC team. Due to certain NDAs, I’m not allowed to discuss all the advice that we gave to MSN about the PPC product and strategies for successful implementation; however, I’m allowed to give my impressions of the meeting.
First off, it can be confirmed that MSN is going to launch a product. It can also be confirmed they will offer various targeting options. I can’t go into if and how they will handle demographic, age, geographic, etc targeting - but the options will eventually be rolled into the product.
I was highly impressed with the team we met with, which included several different individuals from project managers to sales staff to programmers.
Their knowledge of PPC in general was very impressive.
They understood they were playing catch up, and joked lightheartedly about it.
They were dedicated to making a quality product that was unique in the marketplace.
They realized that they had to embrace SEMs to distribute the product.
Due to the SEM relationships, they were not overly concerned about how complex the product would be, and instead would rather give SEMs a lot of options, and then let them decide how to take advantage of the product.
I really did like the attitude. It had been a few years since I had a serious discussion with anyone from MSN, and the team’s understanding about their market share, what they needed to produce, and how to empower SEMs to help them was quite impressive.
Until there’s a finished product to actually play with, it’s difficult to tell how well the execution of the product will be. However, judging by the team’s plans, I for one will be looking forward to playing with their PPC offering.
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