I have an interesting story and copies of email correspondence between someone I'll call MysteryMan and his MSN AdCenter representative that I think you might enjoy.
The Backstory - MysteryMan Says:
I was spending, I dunno, some decent money at Google and Yahoo for PPC in a mix of kw and site ads. Probably doing $50-$100 a day or so.
Anyway, I stopped by the adCenter booth at SES San Jose. They convinced me to try their "quick launch" program. with an assigned rep. Their test was to try to beat either Google or Yahoo on conversion based on their "advanced PPC" knowledge. I agreed to export my campaigns, giving them my keyword list, ad copy and landing pages for a fair test.
After 3 days, the rep wrote back and wanted the total budget and the max CPC for each keyword or site exported directly from AdWords editor. She thoughtfully provided instructions. I already knew how to do the export. I had deleted that -- why would I give one channel the other channel's rates? The goal was to beat ROI, right?
I sent a scathing letter last week. It's now day 5 with no answer. I just told them we're do not call/do not write/do not fax and have no plans to ever work with them again (just like we decided two years ago with their awful traffic).
And now, here's the email correspondence to back that up. I've replaced any mentions of actual names or company names with the words [radio edit] or [MysteryMan] so MysteryMan remains a mystery and the rep isn't named.
On 9/20/07, adCenter QuickLaunch Team [radio edit] wrote:
Dear [MysteryMan],
I'm glad that we had a chance to discuss your account and what you will be receiving as part of your customized service in the QuickLaunch program.
What does your service include?
To recap what we went over during the phone call, your service includes:
- 45 days of one-on-one assistance.
- One upload of ads/keywords from another search engine.
- Help with creating ads/keywords.
- If needed, feedback on resolving editorial review issues.
- Account reporting and analysis.
- Help with optimizing a campaign.
How to get started:
- Complete the QuickLaunch sign-up form, reviewing and approving the terms and conditions, so we can begin the QuickLaunch service.
- Export your current campaign(s). You can find directions for exporting on our Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions FAQs page. Reply to this message, attaching the Excel (XLS) or CSV file that contains your current ads and keywords.
- Log in to your account and update your credit card information, per our phone call. Your username is [radio edit].
If you have any questions, feel free to contact me at [radio edit]. I look forward to working with you!
From [MysteryMan] Sunday, September 23, 2007 8:14 AM
Hi, [radio edit] -- Things got crazy busy Friday so I wanted to tackle this early today.
A couple of quick things:
1) Remember that we don't have a minimum requirement regardless of the agreement. That said, if you beat the other guys on ROI, my combined spending is more than double your minimum. We agreed to go for 2 weeks (14 days), no dayparting, max spend of $200 for that time. It's okay to reach the limit before 14 days. We're all about ROI which is why we deliberately suppress CTR by using the price so prominently.
2) I would love a way to delete credit cards from my account. Since I can't, maybe you can. Everything under the name [MysteryMan] or the company name should be deleted. The only active card since my accident in [radio edit] is the one listed under [radio edit] name. [Bonus points for feedback: your credit card help screens are not very intuitive. SEMs are probably embarrassed to tell you that. I'm not. You may want a tech writer to look at them.]
3) I am giving you an Excel file with some current campaigns and keywords. There is a site buy (which you can replicate in similar demographics), a local buy in [radio edit] and two keyword buys. The ad copy is there, but AdWords editor doesn't export landing pages. Accordingly, you can choose from these:
https://www.[radio edit].com/orderpages/[radio edit].htm
https://www.[radio edit].com/orderpages/[radio edit].htm
https://www.[radio edit].com/orderpages/[radio edit].htm
https://www.[radio edit].com/complaint/[radio edit]-complaints.html
*If you think there is landing page copy that should/must be tried, let's try it in phase 2 to get a fair comparison between engines, but we're certainly open to your ideas. If you come up with some wonderful landing page that closes better, we'll obviously extend longer with MSN.
4) When you pick your landing pages, I probably need a few hours to get the tracking code put on the page.
From Adcenter, Sept. 26
Hi [MysteryMan],
Thank you for your e-mail! I just got back from a business trip and have been working on this. However, I noticed that you still haven't signed up. Please take a moment to fill out this sign-up form so I can proceed.
Also, I'm having trouble with the format of the file you sent. Could you please export your google campaigns using the steps below to ensure that it's in the proper format for the upload into adCenter?
Exporting from Google:
1. Login to your Google adWords account
2. Click on "Reports"
3. Click on "Create a Report Now"
4. Choose these options:
A. Report type = Ad Performance
i. Make sure the box next to text ad is checked
B. View = Summary
C. Date Range = set a large range, at least one full month
D. Campaigns & Ad Groups = All Campaigns and Ad Groups
i. If you do not want to export all your campaigns and ad groups use the manually select option and select the campaigns and orders that you would like to export.
E. Click on the Add or Remove Columns link and make sure the following items are selected:
Under Level of Detail:
Campaign
Keyword
Ad Group
Under Attributes:
Campaign Status
Ad Group Status
Display URL
Headline
Daily Budget
Destination URL
Description Line 1
Description Line 2
Keyword Status
Keyword Matching
Keyword Destination URL
Current Maximum CPC
Under Performance Statistics:
Choose any one of the options in order to run the report
5. Name the Report
6. Click on Create Report
7. Download the Report in .csv format
8. Save Report
9. Email Report
Please let me know if you have any questions.
On September 25, [MysteryMan] replied:
[radio edit] -- Welcome back. I did sign up and will do so again if we're going to test this.
I'm not sure what more you need about my advertising than what I've supplied you. Let me be absolutely clear. I am not sending the details of my Google spend to you. I'm stunned that MSN would even ask and only the willingness to potentially partner is stopping me from blogging that request and Sphinning it to the entire SEM community.
Do people really do that? Are folks that naive? I can assure you that in previous roles that I would never give my media buyer the previous media buyer's data. It just isn't done. Frankly, neither Google nor Yahoo have ever asked for that level of detail when customizing campaigns in the past.
If that's a dealbreaker, then by all means, we'll move on as friends. As for the file, it should be relatively straight forward for anyone to follow. It's a file from your company's spreadsheet with an AdWords Editor export. The missing information is information you won't be receiving deleted at the column level.
Sorry if I've wasted your time. It seems like this just isn't meant to be. Maybe I'll poke around a little bit on the site myself when I have time. Take your time to decide whether it's even worth messing with little fish like us. Meanwhile, I did ask that the multiple credit cards (see the bottom of this thread) were deleted. If someone else is supposed to do that, do let me know.
Thanks,
[MysteryMan]
No reply from adCenter after 5 days, so the following is a reply to adCenter from MysteryMan on Oct. 1 regarding the silence
Wow -- 5 days without a response.
Go ahead, please, and cancel anything having to do with [MysteryMan] and Microsoft. We'll keep our little buy at Google, Yahoo, Ask and AdSonar. The first delay was one that gets shrugged off. The second is intolerable. We'll not do business with you.
By the way, do you know what other job I hold? I run SEM for an [radio edit] company. My spend in 2008 will be over $100k. adCenter won't be in the mix.
Do look for your letter asking for the Google spend soon, however. It is being released to the SEM blogs tomorrow.
Arrogance from the #3 player in a marketspace is pretty sad. Mark us as do not call, do not write, do not fax.
Thank you.
---
So, that's a recap of the events that occurred between MysteryMan and an AdCenter rep. What do you think? Does MysteryMan have a legitimate beef? Or is he refusing to share information that the rep had a legitimate right to request? Is MSN over the top for wanting him to share that much info? Should MysteryMan call it a day and go play online poker instead? Share your thoughts.
Yea, I’d say that is out of line. Of course MSN could craft a campaign and doctor up some numbers to present a better ROI for the test, but what happens after that? No fair peaking!
Hey DazzlinDonna,
I have been doing SEM for several years now for multiple companies spanning millions of dollars and industries. For most industries MSN quality is actually quite superb, the only issue is that their volume is really low.
My experience with MSN reps is that yes, they aren’t the same quality as those in Google & Yahoo. They give less attention and do a poorer job. Having said that I wouldn’t rule out working with MSN in the future as there is quality traffic there.
As for your experience above, it seems like the rep did not ask you for any rates data (imp, clicks, costs, conversion). It seems they just want the google structure (campaign, adgroups, adtext, cpcs) so they can import that into MSN and get that setup. It is common practice for both yahoo & msn to use google export files because they are well aware that marketers have the most extensive well built out structures in Google (because of their far superior UI). Unless I am missing something here, that is my two cents.
Paul
Paul, this wasn’t my experience. Just want to clear that up. But I’ll see what MysteryMan says about your comment, and will pass along any extra info.
I don’t know that I agree that cost data should be so closely guarded from MSN — there are literally dozens of resources that will give you a cost range for any keyword, and most of them are fairly accurate.
However, MSN’s system, customer service, and general attitude are all pretty poor. I personally have experienced MSN “gurus” visiting my website and denying keywords based on their personal understanding of relevancy. In fact, I’ve had to request further review just to get keywords reinstated (despite the link being obvious).
MSN’s PPC options are a joke. Low volume and poor customer service.
What could possibly be more subjective than asking some recent college grad to compare my keyword list to my site? Why not do what the big boys do and rely upon session data and CTR to determine relevancy?
Well for one thing, those CPCs would have set Mystery Man up nicely in terms of positioning based on what he was willing to spend with AdWords (and the related demand). MSN has bigger fish to fry than fixing bids on somebody spending hundreds/thousands of dollars a year. Way to go all powertrip on the rep though.
sounds like you have a case of MSN running a promo for new accounts and the prospect/clients knows more about PPC than the Rep —- the Rep only knows to follow the “script” of the sign up campaign and most likely isn’t sure how to respond…like PaulSEM said, the traffic is low on MSN….
Did someone just imply that Yahoo! reps are better at anything than anyone?
Google’s lack of service in the early days was preferable to Yahoo!’s rubbish excuse for service. We’ve lived through every possible PPC ad campaign management nightmare imaginable with Yahoo!
… reps with zero knowledge of the outside world
… erroneous billing
… refusal to refund fraudulent clicks
… changing campaign metrics without our permission
… ignoring upload requests for 2 months!!!
… swapping destination URLs due to a “system glitch”
… delivering 1 month’s budget worth of traffic in a single day and then stopping ad delivery for the rest of the month
…
… I can go on, and on, and on, and on…..
Oh, and I can’t omit this one:
Yahoo! Account Managers and Business Development reps who sayone thing, do another and leave no trace on the system for anyone to be able to check what they did, which means you typically receive a response from the support rep that goes “I don’t know………, my systerm is not showing anything…, and it’s taking too long to load, maybe if i called you back in an hour when it’s back up and running………”
The Microsoft AdCenter customer service is awful. I recentally closed my account there due to a similar problem. I’m not going to fight that hard to give such a small player my money. Here’s hoping they never become big enough that I have to work with them.
The story seems odd in that adCenter is being judged entirely based on the service of a rep in the $200 budget service level.
Where did the rep as for all this personal information from the Google account? Seemed to me that the rep was asking for account structure, previously created campaigns/ads/kw so they could do a proper comparison.
Aaron
“do you know how much I spend!?!?!” Please, just work for a low spend SEM (who doesn’t have one these days?)you think the world owes you something.
I’ve read the emails, nowhere did they ask for your conversion data or anything that could be considered confidential in nature. You are crying about giving your cpcs – really? That’s your big gripe? I think you are just a MSFT hater and would have trashed them regardless of what happened. If they gave you max CPCs you would have scoffed “that’s too high what do you think I’m just going to throw money at you.”
It’s clear from your emails however, that you didn’t want to give adCenter a chance. At no point did the rep change the tone to warrant such anger and hatred from you.
If it makes you feel any better, you probably wasted $200 worth of the rep’s time dealing with you. I suggest you reavaluate your gameplan with dealing with the engines. Not a good way to make friends.
PS – Donna, shame on you for having a slow day to post the rant of one customer. We all know that bad news travels faster than good.
hoffmyer zoodigan (love that name, btw), i’ll be happy to post the flip side of this story, if anyone wants to share one with me. so, anyone with a happy story to counter this one about adcenter, feel free to share it. if its quick, post it here in the comments. if it’s long and involved, send it via email, and i’ll make a proper post out of it.
It seems like MysteryMan had a bit of an overreaction to the adCenter rep’s email. If he didn’t want to provide that information, he could’ve just said so and left it at that. When I’ve dealt with reps at Google and Ask, they’ve also asked me what I’m spending at other engines. Publishers do that — it’s a common tactic. It’s up to the buyer not to reveal that data.
And then to assume that not providing the data is a dealbreaker — like I said, MysteryMan is obviously someone who thinks higher of himself than he should. Seriously, he got asked a question that is often asked in advertising, and he takes it as a personal affront. Get serious.
See, I had a feeling there would be opposing viewpoints, which is why I asked for your thoughts. I’m an organic kinda gal (in terms of SEO), so I wanted to leave it up to you PPC experts to comment on this. Glad I did.
I had to read the email exchange through twice. All the AdCenter rep is asking for, as far as I can see, are the fields that are necessary to upload the spreadsheet into AdCenter. The maximum CPC is a required field for this, and it’s usually down to the customer to decide what that is.
Most people I know would import their Google campaigns into MSN, Yahoo, etc. in this manner, and, if they’re like me, would tweak their maximum CPC according to the engine concerned.
MSN performs well for us, just wish there was more volume.
MysteryMan has overreacted IMHO.
Sharing max CPCs with MSN might not be giving away proprietary data, but it might be irrelevant. Every engine performs differently, so max CPCs will naturally vary from engine to engine (assuming you are tracking your ROI and setting bids accordingly). And if you’re testing an engine for the first time, you might want to bid conservatively anyway.
What I usually do is ask the engine rep to provide me with recommended max CPCs for each keyword. Then I can decide whether those fit my parameters or not, without sharing info that might be considered sensitive and probably isn’t relevant anyway.
The fact that it took MSN over 5 days to respond to Mystery Man’s email is poor service, imho. The rep should have called him and talked it over, or at least emailed him in a more timely manner. You never know when a $200 test can turn into a $200K annual spend…..
Melissa
My opinion is the quality and quantity of MSN traffic is acceptable but the interface still has a way to go as does the client support. The nuts and bolts type support is pretty good. The ‘how do I do…’ type of request. But the account strategy assistance is lacking.
The Quick Launch program is just that, a short engagement, basically setting up n00bs. That is a knock on MSN is the difficulty in getting a dedicated account manager to provide real strategy which Mystery Man was looking for.
As a Project Manager in a web development company, the emails Mystery Man sends are a Red Flag for me. He’s clearly a difficult, impatient customer and (no offense intended) he comes off as rather arrogant by only the second email.
Personally, I am not shocked the rep didn’t respond to the veiled threats (I’ll blog your letter? Rreally?) and the general attitude. I wouldn’t have either.
Sounds to me like the kind of client I would politely ask to move on. Clients this difficult this early on will drain your human resources and patients.