The Microsoft Adcenter service is just a little over one year old, and in that time they have managed to take some of the search territory away from Google. And that’s a good thing.
I’ll be the first to admit that I have had my complaints about Microsoft. I dissed their MSN.com for their overuse of ads, information overload, and their habit of not replacing old content in my article “MSN.com: An example of what not to do.” I had some complaints about IE9 in my article “IE9 not ready for prime time.” I retracted most of my complaints in the IE9 article and now use IE9 for most of my browsing.
Now I’m ready to heap some praise on Microsoft. I’ve been using Adcenter for about as long as the service has been around, and my experience is that Google can learn a few things from Microsoft. One of the biggest differences between the two services is the interface. You need six months of training to learn how to get around the Adwords interface. With Microsoft everything is easily accessible. And their help files are actually helpful, unlike Google which has you running all over the web chasing one help file after another to find the answers you’re looking for. Even better is the way Microsoft uses videos to explain help topics.
When it comes to customer service, Microsoft wins hands down. Google’s customer service is non existent. With Microsoft I can actually pick up the phone and talk to a live person. Google doesn’t come close. They take days to respond to e-mails, and more often than not the response is a generic e-mail with links to help files.
Chasing Google
When Microsoft joined forces with Yahoo search last year, the move gave Microsoft approximately 30% of search, with Google taking up the majority of the remaining 70%. I fully expect that gap to close. It may even get to a 50/50 split within a year or two. Why? Because Microsoft isn’t just following Google’s lead. They’re coming up with their own innovative ideas.
For example, have you seen the new “more on this page” feature. Here’s a screenshot that shows the feature.
I discovered this feature purely by accident. I didn’t read about it anywhere. It just appeared one day when I was searching. This single feature puts Bing ahead of Google in my opinion. First, it gives the searcher an idea of what information is contained on the page that is linked to without having to click on the link. You can quickly scan search results in a fraction of the time that you can with Google. And the best thing about it from a developer’s standpoint is that you don’t have to do anything, submit anything, or jump through any hoops to get this to work. Bing takes relevant copy from the website page and uses that for what is displayed.
Costs
If you’re looking for more reasons to consider giving Adcenter a try, how about costs? In PPC advertising there are a number of factors that go into determining your cost per click (CPC). One of them is competition. For whatever reason, I have a hard time convincing clients to give Adcenter a try. It’s Google, Google, Google. I want to be on Google. Okay, but did you know that you can run virtually the same ad on Adcenter at a fraction of the cost?
To give you just one example, I’ll use my own experience with advertising for Web design services. The cost to have your ad displayed on the first page of bid results is between $4 ad 9$ depending on the keyword phrase.
To get on the first page of Bing results, my average cost is less than $2 a click.
I don’t know about you, but I would much rather get 6 clicks at $1.50 a click than 1 click at $9 a click. The costs got so out of control on Adwords I decided it wasn’t worth the cost to be on the first page. So I lowered my bid and settled for page two results. The same thing is true for some other competitive markets such as PPC management where top ad placement on Google can run as high as $26 a click. And that’s not a typo. Can you imagine what it must feel like paying $25 a click and then to see 50% or more of those clicks come and go in less than ten seconds. So ten clicks are going to cost me $250 a day, $7,500 a month. That’s nuts.
So if you want to save yourself some money and still drive traffic to your site, why not give Adcenter a try. Laern more at Adwords Company.
Follow Us