MSN AdCenter Beta... Actually Not Crappy.

I feel like I may have to take back that headline... Because in my experience with MSN's AdCenter, something usually goes crappy.

I've been doing paid search for about a year now. And in that short time, I learned very quickly (early on) what an unpleasant experience it was working with MSN AdCenter. My woes included:

• Inaccurate reporting. Numbers for one specific day would change if you checked them a few days later because the system hadn't input all the data when you initially checked it.
• A "bi-atch" of a bulksheet upload template. What was up with the multiple tabs? It was confusing. And to be honest, I don't even think my anxiety-ridden bitch of a rep knew how to fill it out completely. She managed to upload campaigns incorrectly after chastising me for filling it out incorrectly.
• Rejections on keywords that included your brand name. The process to get these reviewed was time consuming and a vortex in which a request goes in... But the status never comes out.
• Slow functionality in reporting. The system just moved too slow. It would take me about 15 minutes to pull data for the previous day.

Then, last week, I came across an industry article that listed the Beta link for the new version of AdCenter. And to be honest, I purposely set my expectations for it extremely low. I mean, I was convinced it was a "crap" product. And the volume they offer seems to be very low. (I can get 400% more traffic daily from Ask.com.)

But to my surprise, after having used the Beta version since last week, I am optimistic for MSN.

Now, I'm not a rocket scientist... So I'm not doing anything "super cool" with MSN. I have campaigns running. I try in vain to optimize them. (Hasn't worked really well.) And I pull, daily, my clicks and spend to compare against the conversion data being reported in-house here at work.

But despite having such simple needs from MSN, in the past they had always disappointed me. But with the new version of AdCenter, everything seems to be functioning well. Very well. Almost too well. So well, I feel like it would be foolish to believe it will last.

Accentuating the positive:

• My reports run quickly.
• It appears to be insanely easy to bulk upload keywords using the spreadsheet they provide.
• Data seems to be accurate day to day.

And for now, that's enough for me. If these things continue, I may stop referring to my rep as the "evil witch who doesn't respond to emails."

If these things continue to function well by themselves, I may not even need my rep. And then, MSN could stop having their outsourced recruiters contact me about "an exciting job opportunity for Microsoft."