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So Microsoft adCenter is the only one of the 3 major paid search platforms that does NOT report on revenue. Google AdWords will break it down nicely for you with conversion types, being leads, sales, sign-ups, and other, complete with revenue dollars generated from paid search ads in AdWords. It’s quite a beautiful thing, but for the money it can now cost to run ads on AdWords with the competition these days, its good that there are such details to be accountable to. It looks pretty much like this:
As you can see in the AdWords Account Report, Sales count and Sales Value are both there. As well, there options to capture Leads Count, Leads Value, Sign-ups Count, Sign-ups Value, Other Count, Other Value. REALLY REALLY Great Key Performance Metrics.
Yahoo! Search Marketing also captures revenue generated from Paid Search and reports it in the Panama Reports Dashboard. Here is what the Yahoo! Revenue reporting looks like:
Again, as you can see, the revenue column is happily there, and there is also a column which displays the ROAS.
Here is where I would LOVE to place the screenshot of a Microsoft adCenter report with revenue, however at best, I can only place a screenshot without revenue. This is not to say that adCenter is not a performer! It really is! In fact, I can happily place a screenshot of a sales-based account where the click through rate is through the roof, but wouldn’t it be OUTSTANDING if I could tell the client how much revenue these ads generated?
My request is in to Microsoft, of course, to have this extremely key metric made to be a part of adCenter, and independent of using an analytics package. Both Google and Yahoo! do have analytics packages, however, these revenue amounts in their reports are gathered directly from their platforms and the conversion codes placed on thank you or confirmation pages of websites with shopping carts…Google revenue reporting gathered from AdWords, and Yahoo! revenue reporting gathered from Panama, and I submit that Microsoft revenue reporting needs to be gathered from adCenter conversion coding in the same way. ESPECIALLY with their desire to go toe-to-toe with Google on the search front.
My extremely capable and wonderful contacts from Microsoft are doing everything they can for me based on my requests, but I have such difficulty believing that there aren’t hoards of you out there requiring this metric as well and trying to have it implemented.
I do believe in Microsoft adCenter. Maybe like in Peter Pan if we all yell it out at our computers as loud as we can, and from our hearts, they will exist better and stronger (by including revenue as a reporting option in adCenter)!
Let me know what you think!
The Doug
aka Doug Gebhardt
As posted in SEM, Tools, PPC, Opinion, Online Retailing, MSN/Live.
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9 Responses to “Microsoft adCenter - Where’s The Revenue?”
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March 28th, 2008 at 1:26 pm[…] http://www.searchenginepeople.com/blog/microsoft-adcenter-wheres-the-revenue.html - check this out. Like this post? Share it! […]
March 28th, 2008 at 11:38 am
Totally agree with you on this one, in fact its quite amazing how MSN Ad Center doesn’t include sales value and revenue. I have heard great things about MSN and how the conversions are much better than Google and Yahoo, would you agree Doug?
March 28th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
Dave, I can’t agree with you more. There might not be the volume of Google however it seems that the people who click through the ads on MSN are serious about what they are after. Click through rates and conversion rates are outstanding as a rule, and if Microsoft does what is needed AND manages to gain market share, that could spell some trouble for Google.
March 30th, 2008 at 11:01 am
Wow that is pretty messed up. I signed up for Microsoft ads but never followed through and now I am glad. They need to work on this pronto.
March 30th, 2008 at 1:01 pm
Maybe they don’t want you to see how much money you wasted on them?
March 30th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
I keep hearing how Adcenter has better conversion, but I haven’t seen a significant difference in many of the niches we’re in. AdCenter’s inferior interface, errors, ad approval lags, lack of revenue reporting, and much much smaller search volume makes me think they won’t catch up to Adwords anytime soon.
I hope they do improve and get more market share - someone needs to challenge the big G in a more significant way.
March 30th, 2008 at 2:21 pm
Hey howtoflow. Yes, it is pretty messed up, but I won’t give up on them. I know that if THEY know how much it is wanted that they’ll put it in. They DO need to work on it pronto, and as I mentioned, we need more people to speak out and request it. As for not following through, if you do ads in Yahoo, then you would probably do close to the same in Microsoft adCenter, depending on your niches.
March 30th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
Hi Malte Landwehr! Well, as I mentioned, we do great with the click throughs on MSN and the conversions are also generally better, especially in b2c accounts, (based on percentages at least if not volume), so from our perspective, it’s not a wasted spend, particularly at the outlandishly low click costs, but its just plain no good to not have the numbers to report back with.
March 30th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
I’d love to see it too, Marcus941. I’d like to see some evening out across the playing fields. I also think that you’re right, and it may be performance in some niches and not so much in others, but interestingly I find that the interface is a little easier than that of Yahoo! (where there are completely different reporting issues I may use for a future blog post, ha ha)