Entries Tagged 'Search & Marketing' ↓

There is always something to learn no matter where you are or what you are doing. 

It’s the type of annoying statement your mother would make but unfortunately many times your mother was right.  (My mother doesn’t read this blog or else I couldn’t admit that.)  I went to the store last night to pick up a few last minute things for the week.  While I was there I also purchased a “Tide to Go” pen which had not been on my list.  The Tide pen ended up being left on the kitchen table overnight so while I was eating lunch today I looked over my spur of the moment purchase and realized I had a bonafied 3 part marketing series staring me in the face. Without further ado here is the first installment of “Tide Wisdom”. 

Warning - Tide Wisdom is not cutting edge marketing information as much as a reminder of things we often forget to take advantage of.  If you’re the owner of a top tier ecommerce site this won’t be big news - but it’s money left on the screen (so to speak) by a lot of smaller websites.

Continue reading →

I was just talking with cshel on IM about her recent blog post “How well does the Google algo catch spamdexers?” which is quickly gaining popularity over at digg.  Ironically, late last night I found a similar instance of this type of behavior (though not as aggressive) but I was too tired to blog about it and it wasn’t until I read cshel’s article that I even remembered.  (In a “nut-cshell” a company uses hundreds, even thousands of domain names with duplicate content to point a large number of links to their main website - Traffic Power comes to mind.)
Continue reading →

Sorry for the huge delay. I had a work emergency, found out my mother has cancer and a computer meltdown which have kept me from doing much of anything outside the “absolutely necessary” for sometime.

For anyone who actually found this blog and was curious about the end of the MSN adCenter woes I’ll give you a short synopsis.

After validating myself (you look really nice today - thanks!) I re-stated my questions about this mixup:

Again, my primary questions remain:

• Why has adCenter rejected such a large percentage of my keywords claiming they were off-topic when this campaign has been able to run for nearly 6 months with clearly off-topic words in it?
• Will I be given a credit for the advertising dollars that were spent ineffectually?
• Why is it that this support ticket has bounced to now three people?

I received a response from the same adCenter support person as the previously posted email. (Wow, the same person responds more than once - that’s amazing!) This time I was told that they would be happy to assist me in re-creating the campaigns that were incorrectly setup but absolutely no mention of refunding the money that was incorrectly spent.

It was about this time that I found out my mother had cancer and that pushed this issue completely to the side as I focused on learning what I could about her condition and trying to spend time with her. The doctor determined that they would need to cut out about 50% of her stomach and scheduled the surgery as quickly as they could. The surgery did not go as well as the doctor (or my family of course) were hoping. They found more cancer in her stomach than they had expected and were forced to take more like 75% of her stomach out. After the surgery while I sat with my mom in the hospital I got a phone call which I chose to ignore. Checking my messages later it turned out to be from - wait for it - ANOTHER NEW ADCENTER PERSON.

“This is _______ from MSN adCeneter support and I was calling to check on your recent trouble. Give me a call back and I can talk you through re-creating the campaign(s) that you’re having trouble with.”

As I said, my mother’s illness is more of a priority and I did not choose to call him back. Partly because the support people seem incapable of understanding what I am asking them to do. I want them to fix the mistake they made not try and talk me through what I already know how to do. I want one person to just fix the problem with me not continue to bounce me to other people. And I want them to refund some of my money to me even though it’s not a large sum.

The whole situation went beyond the point where it was amusing me so I just let it go. I’ve not received another call or email regarding the issue even though the “support ticket” should still be open and that doesn’t surprise me.

So - final tally:

1. Time since first phone call - 5+ months
2. Number of people communicated with - 4
3. Campaign status - paused
4. Money refunded - $0.00

Thanks MSN!

The very next day I received a response from a new support staff member.  For those of you keeping track at home that’s the third adCenter Support staff person I’ve spoken with about the problem and I’m no closer to it being resolved than when I started.

This is M. from Microsoft adCenter Support.

It is my understanding that there has been an error in creating some of your orders within the QuickLaunch program.  I can appreciate that this issue may have caused some confusion for your clients and will do everything I can to bring further clarity to this issue for you.

Upon reviewing the issue at hand, I can see that you are upset with the process so far.  I can certainly understand how important it is to have your campaign functioning properly as to allow the most traffic possible.

What I would like to do is to investigate further into this matter and discover what portions of the campaign have been affected.  If you could provide us with the following information, it will allow us to continue in reviewing this issue.

Please provide the following:

1.    How many orders were affected?
2.    Which keywords were affected?
3.    When the issue started?
4.    Are the accounts affected still incurring the issue?
(As I see that the ———- campaign has been paused)

Also to validate the account, we would request that you provide us with the following pieces of information:

1.    The primary current e-mail name used to create account.
2.    The company name.
3.    The telephone number that was used to create the account.
4.    The Microsoft adCenter account number.
5.    Either the last 4 digits of the credit card on file or the answer to the secret question

Your willingness to reply with this requested information is greatly appreciated.

As well, we would be more than happy to work with you in creating new campaigns and orders in Microsoft adCenter. ! I have documented this email today and the information that I have pro vided you.  If would like assistance from a Microsoft Support Professional, just contact customer support and provide this reference number.   The reference number is xxxxxxxxx
If you should have any additional questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact us.

I thank you for being a valued Microsoft adCenter customer. Our goal at Microsoft adCenter Customer Support is to provide the best possible support for our clients.  Thank you for your time and patience as we continue to review this issue for you.

Thank you for contacting Microsoft adCenter. If you would like you may also contact us by phone. We can be reached at 1-800-518-5689. Our hours are 6am - 6pm PST, 7 days a week. Microsoft adCenter also contains a complete set of help topics to answer your questions, guide you through tasks, and provide useful tips. Help topics will appear on a narrow pane right beside the Microsoft adCenter page you are viewing. Simply click Help in the upper-right corner of any Microsoft adCenter page.

Sincerely,

M.
Microsoft adCenter Customer Support Professional

It’s interesting that I validated myself with the first adCenter support person over the phone, and they are cooresponding with the email address onfile with the account but I will still need to prove I’m the actual account holder.  Ah well - guess it’s time for me to draft another email.  I wonder how many more “parts” of this series it will take before the problem has been resolved?

Amazed at the MSN response I drafted a response. The response was actually sent 1-2 weeks after the support email was received. The delay was caused by a very busy work time and the fact that when I first read the support email I was too frustrated by the lack of customer service to respond.

K.

Forgive the late response, I had an emergency that came up and took my focus away from the adcenter concerns.

“I would also like to suggest that you email the representative that was handling your account in the QuickLauch Program and advise them of the issues that have caused you concern.”

Can I ask why you would like me to contact this person? From an outsider’s perspective I have requested help from Adcenter Support regarding a problem and now been told to contact someone else from Adcenter staff to fix it, which seems highly curious to me. Shouldn’t any support person from Adcenter be able to fix the problem? Shouldn’t the support person I originally talked to, or the person who followed up with me (you), take ownership of the problem and come up with a solution?

“If these steps should prove unsuccessful we ! as Microsoft adCenter Support agents would like to offer our services to walk you through the steps of creating new Campaigns and Orders.”

So I’ve talked to someone at Adcenter Support, been emailed a response from Adcenter Support, and now as soon as I get done talking to the person who originally signed me up to Adcenter, Adcenter Support will be happy to offer their services?Kathy, I’m not angry with you I promise. : ) You are likely caught in some goofy system that requires you to request customers like myself to jump through hoops that make no sense. I will try to find the contact information for the adcenter quicklaunch person who helped me originally. (That would be the same person who told me at the end of the setup that all questions would be handled by Adcenter Support in the future.) If he is able to take care of my problem easily I will be pleased but still baffled by the process. If he cannot assist me I will likely just deal with the problem myself, no offense intended. You see, I already know how to set up new campaigns and orders. I contacted Adcenter Support to let you know that while you seem to reject hundreds of on topic keywords in orders I set up you allowed words and ads that were clearly not on topic to run in the campaign set up incorrectly by your own people. Oh, I was also hoping someone would be willing to refund some of the campaign spend since it was clearly wasted money.Sincerely,

PS - I really do hate to grumble from the sidelines so if you know of any job openings in Adcenter send me a link to the application page. I’m pretty sure I could help sorting out system and customer service concerns from the customer perspective. ; )

Following is a copy of the email response that I recieved from the adCenter Advertiser Support Team (the bolded text was added to highlight and was not a part of the original email):

Thank you for contacting Microsoft adCenter Support, my name is Kathy.

It is my understanding that on December 29, 2005 you had your ads created by our Quick Launch Program. Upon the completion of these services your ads became active. Time has passed and you have been looking into your account and have realized that there are some errors in some of your Campaigns and Orders. I understand that this may be causing you some inconvenience and I am going to assist you to the best of my ability.

In regards to the phone conversation that we had this morning, we would like to suggest that until a resolution to these issues have been found that you pause any orders that may be causing you concern. I would also like to suggest that you email the representative that was handling your account in the QuickLauch Program and advise them of the issues that have caused you concern.

If these steps should prove unsuccessful we ! as Microsoft adCenter Support agents would like to offer our services to walk you through the steps of creating new Campaigns and Orders. If you require any further assistance regarding this issue please refer to service ticket #1013939481.

Again, I would like to thank you for your patience regarding this matter and would like to offer our assistance in any way possible.

Thank you again, for contacting Microsoft adCenter. If you would like you may also contact us by phone. We can be reached at 1-800-518-5689. Our hours are 6am - 6pm PST, 7 days a week. Microsoft adCenter also contains a complete set of help topics to answer your questions, guide you through tasks, and provide useful tips. Help topics will appear on a narrow pane right beside the Microsoft adCenter page you are viewing. Simply click Help in the upper-right corner of any Microsoft adCenter page.
Sincerely,
K.

Microsoft adCenter Support

Coming up next: My Email Response in MSN Support Trouble Part 3

In December I received the chance to to join the MSN adCenter quicklaunch program. This program allowed a small group of people to test out the upcoming MSN search advertising program before it went into a full beta program. As a part of the quicklaunch I was designated an adCenter representative to facilitate the set up process. It was a good thing that I had help or I would have never gotten my account up and running. I had a series of quirky issues getting my username and password accepted which took multiple emails, phone calls, and only ended when J. (my adCenter rep) created an account for me out of frustration. However, once things were up and running I was pleased with the quality and price of the traffic I received and added additional campaigns to my account to take further advantage of the program.

Fast Forward to late April/early May. While doing some checking on my account I decided to look over one of the campaigns originally set up by quicklaunch. I had only looked it over briefly when it went live at the end of December and wanted to compare this campaign to some that I had set up since. Most notably, I was curious if I would see any “rejected” keywords since in campaigns I have set up adCenter has rejected a rather large percentage of them. I didn’t find many rejected keywords but what I found was quite surprising. The quicklaunch representative had set up multiple campaigns for me for different websites/markets. In one campiagn (hypotheticaly for auto insurance) I found my most productive order was full of keywords that were intended for MP3 players. (again - hypothetically) I was quite frustrated to see that the two ads for the order went to the two different sites, used the same keywords and yet there were no more than 5 rejected keywords for either ad. In other words, my order was sending people who saw an ad for auto insurance to my MP3 site in addition to sending MP3 interested people to my auto insurance site!
I called adCenter support which was a chore in itself since the help information kept pointing me to a page that was supposed to have a contact number that didn’t have any information on it. After a bit of sleuthing I found a number and spoke with a very friendly adCenter support person. S. was very friendly but didn’t strike me as being very familiar with the system. I had to basically explain to S. some of the features of the program (really!) and was informed by S. that she was not really sure how a particular function worked. At least S. created a ticket for me explaining the problem and assured me that I would hear back soon as to:

• how they could quickly and easily fix the account for me to save me time and hassle.
• whether they could refund some or all of my campaign spend since it was clearly not sending users to the type of information it was supposed to.

Now, I fully admit that I should have been more careful in looking over the campaigns set up by J. the quicklaunch representative, but it didn’t seem like I was asking a lot to have adCenter support fix the problem for me and to refund some money. Well, I’ve been wrong before.

Coming Up Soon - adCenter Woes Pt 2