Search, Marketing and Whatever

So the kids and I had so much fun that the wife decided that we would all do it again the next day.  Just because she didn’t get up early on Friday (like I did since I’m such a good parent) she decides to punish me with another 6:00 am morning.  I’m actually glad she did as this was a completely different experience than the day before.  As I mentioned in the previous post the Friday morning launch was just two balloons at a nearby school.  Balloons were launched at schools all over town making it a truly city-wide experience.  On Saturday all of the hot air balloons were in one location meaning that we got to see 40 balloons lanuch from one field over the course of an hour!  It was really something to see!  It’s late and I’m off to bed soon but I’ll share a couple of photos so you can get an idea of what it was like.

This is the sight that greeted us when we arrived!

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This morning I got up at the ungodly hour of 6 a.m.* so I could take my kids to see some hot air balloons launch. This took place about 3-4 blocks from my house! Each year our area has a “Balloon Stampede” but this was the first year that I have gotten up to take the kids. I’ll likely do it tomorrow too as it was quite a lot of fun and I’ll be able to go to a different location as they launch balloons from 10-15 places thoughout our valley. It is quite something to see 15-20 balloons rising over a small town (50,000 people roughly) and this year they are have 40 balloons total I belieive. More informaiton is available at Balloon Stampede.

*I looked it up in several versions of the bible, the book of morman, the Qhoran and a pamphlet I got from a smelly panhandler in Las Vegas two years ago. They all said that God’s plan for us never included being up that early.

That’s one way to warm up on a chilly morning! (It wasn’t chilly, but what do you write as a caption for a seriously over-steroided cigar lighter?)
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Yeah I know you can’t really see people well - but at least it’s evidence I did attend.

Three quick things I learned at my reunion.
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I’m off today for my 20 year high school reunion.  I went to a boarding high school so it’s a little different than the type of reunion that my wife went to a few years ago.  They showed up for dinner together at a restaurant and then hit a couple of the local bars as a group.  My reunion will be a weekend event with people showing up this evening to talk, meet the next day for lunch and dinner later that night!  The school I attended is small, my graduating class was only about 65 people but I suspect we’ll have 40 of the class show up with spouses (and some kids) in tow. 
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I know it’s politically incorrect to hate an Apple product these days.  They are after all single handedly making it possible for us to pretend we are in a movie with our own soundtrack through the wonder of the ipod.  (I always thought a good soundtrack was all reality was really missing.)  However, Quicktime just ticks me off.  Why? I realize it’s free and helps you media on your pc or mac but I have collected my short grumpy list below.

• Everytime I pull up a file with Quicktime the program brings up the equivilant of a pop-up window trying to get me to upgrade to “Quicktime Pro” for only $30.  I’ve looked at Quicktime Pro and I don’t want it.  I already have other programs that take care of the additional functionality Pro would offer me so I’m not interested in having to pause and select that I’m not interested each and every time I use it’s free brother.  Is there a quick and easy “don’t show this again” checkbox?  Not that I have seen.

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The radio was playing as I took my 9 year old son to school this morning.  He is an avid (relentless) slug-bug player which meant I was losing as I’m not fond of the a.m. hours.  Billy Joel came on over the radio and pretty quickly my son stopped looking for vw bugs and listened to the words.  It wasn’t long before he asked,

“Did he just say, the good die young?” 

There was nothing else I could do.  I cringed inwardly and admitted to that those were the words to the song. 

“I don’t want to die young!”

And so saying firmly placed himself on the path to bad (versus good) since you obviously live longer that way.

I feel wiped out from soccer practice so I’m too tired to have anything too philisopfical to say.  Instead, here is a short list of things that have annoyed me in the last few days at one time or another.

• That my shins hurt really bad after a hard soccer practice!!
• That my wife’s (Bengal) cat tries to take over my chair when I leave my office.  I work at home so I have it pretty much claimed the majority of the day - can’t she take a hint?
• That painting a kitchen all day will eventually mean I have a major headache for about 5 hours.  I’ll even admit it - I’m a wimp about headaches since I never get them.
• That I have exactly 343 cabinet doors to paint for the kitchen - okay it only seems like it.
• That Google hates affiliate marketers. (#*&@)
• That my vehicle still smells like an auto shop after getting the transmission worked on.  I only smell it when I first get in but it’s been like 6-8 weeks since I got it back.
• That a couple of my external hard drive enclosures seem flaky.   They work…then they don’t work…then they work again…then - you get the picture.
• That I can’t find a decent freelance writer for a reasonable price.  Yeah - I’m probably cheap but the last two I hired screwed me over.  One took partial payment up front and disappeared without writing a word and the other just looked up an article on the interent and re-phrased it. (Dupe content - how nice!)

I don’t go to iTunes store very often but the wife requested a couple songs be added to her ipod. I’m trying to give them money and their site is so slow I’ll probably go buy somewhere else.

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?