Upgrading to Microsoft Content Ads – Contextual advertising on the US Microsoft network

Well… I haven’t posted for a while, so here’s everything what you missed.

As many of you know, we are currently rolling out our Microsoft Content Ads pilot—our contextual advertising offering in the U.S. This service allows your text ads to display next to relevant content on sites within the US Microsoft network, such as MSN’s Health & Fitness, Tech & Gadgets, Travel, and Money. We’ve been learning a lot throughout the pilot and we appreciate the feedback that we’ve received thus far. The pilot has been going really well and many of our advertisers are now benefiting by advertising on content pages within MSN that reach millions of high-quality consumers who are likely to buy online. We are now expanding the number of advertisers that will be able to participate in this pilot.

Content Ads Choices

This week, some of our U.S. advertisers will receive an e-mail notification that their accounts will be upgraded as part of the adCenter Content Ads pilot program. If you receive this notice, your campaigns will automatically be upgraded to include distribution on content pages within the Microsoft network. Advertisers whose campaigns are upgraded will have control over their campaigns and have the following choices:

Hybrid: Run your ads on Live Search and content pages using “hybrid” ad groups.

Your existing ad groups will automatically be set to display on content pages at your current search ad bid prices. You can also set new bids for your content clicks through the beta site.

Turn off Content Ads.

Within the Ad Group Settings tab, under the Targeting section, click the Select a distribution method for this ad group link, and clear the Content check box. You can learn more about this option by reading our help article.

Create content-only and search-only ad groups.

You can create a unique destination URL or have content-specific ad creative.
If you choose to run your ads on content pages, you’ll also have the ability to set separate pricing for content clicks. Content Ads uses the same bid structure as your search ads—you pay only when someone clicks your ad. However, you also have the choice of setting different bid prices for content clicks by using the Separate Bid Pricing feature within the Advanced Bidding Options. You can learn how by reading our recent in-depth post of how to set separate bid prices for Content Ads. We’ve also made it easy to track your performance for Content Ads with reporting that provides details on search performance separately from content performance.

Recommended approach for the Content Ads pilot

We recommend choosing the hybrid approach, as it is an easy way to access our high converting audience on the Microsoft network without having to make any changes. For instance, Microsoft Content Ads are displayed only on MSN published sites, no syndicated sites, delivering the MSN audience to the advertiser. Our network also has an impressive reach—delivering an audience of over 96 million unique visitors a month, 81% of whom purchased online in the past six months (source: Nielsen//NetRatings, Home & Work, January 2006).

Content Ads are displayed around site content chosen by consumers, providing specific targeting ability, and are matched to that content, making the Content Ad relevant to their interests. You can also use our powerful demographic targeting, geo-targeting and incremental bidding tools with Content Ads to help you reach the audience you want.

Other important information for the pilot

In addition to access to our content pages, advertisers whose accounts are upgraded will benefit from new features available only on the Microsoft adCenter beta site. Designed to help make campaign management easier and more productive, these features include the ability to import other online advertising campaigns, make bulk updates to keywords, perform full text search, and save favorites. Check out our webinar to learn more.

If you want to learn more about Microsoft Content Ads, check out our Frequently Asked Questions. If you haven’t yet received an upgrade notice and you want to be considered for our next group of upgraded accounts, you can fill out our sign-up form.
Source