As interest in Bing continues, and with the pending launch of the Microsoft/Yahoo paid search partnership, advertising in Microsoft adCenter PPC is becoming more viable. One concern is that adCenter does not allow one to opt-in/opt-out of their Search Network Partners. Here is a breakdown of the big three and their options for Ad Placement. On all three ad platforms, advertising on the Search or Content Network is optional on a campaign-by-campaign basis. Once you decide to use a given network, however, the details begin to vary:
| Network | Yahoo Sponsored Search | MS adCenter | |
| Search | Ad Display is: | ||
| SE Owned And Operated Sites | Optional | Optional | Optional |
| Search Partners | Opt with Search | Opt with Search | Required with Search |
| Content | Ad Display is: | ||
| Run of Network | Optional | Optional | Optional |
| Opt-in Placement | Yes | No | No |
| Opt-out Placement | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Definitions:
SE Owned and Operated Sites – sites owned by the Search Engines (e.g. msn.com, YouTube.com) as well as the main Search Sites themselves
Search Partners – sites owned by others that show search results from the search engine(s)
Run of Network – Ads are displayed across all partner sites based on the content of the page – not as the result of an active search
Opt-in Placement – Content ads are displayed on a given site only if that site is provided by name in a whitelist, perhaps with separate bidding on a site-by-site basis.
Opt-out Placement – Content ads are displayed on all sites unless the site’s name is provided in a blacklist.
As you can see above, MS adCenter does not give you the option of optiing out of their search partners. This raises the question: what is the quality of the partner sites on which adCenter Search ads might display?
To answer this question, I looked over some client accounts that are advertising through adCenter. Looking over several accounts and over 1/3 of a million impressions, here is a breakdown some of the sites that MSN is using for their Search Network. This is far from an exhaustive list, and is biased based on the types of accounts reviewed, but it serves as a good snapshot into the high caliber of sites in the network.
At the moment, the AdCenter Search Network consists primarily of MSN properties and quality partner sites.
MS Owned and Operated
Health
- health.msn.com
- lifestyle.msn.com
Jobs
- careers.msn.com
News
- autoshow.autos.msn.com
- local.msn.com
- msnbc.msn.com
- realestate.msn.com
- today.msnbc.msn.com
Research/Information
- moneycentral.msn.com
- movies.msn.com
- office.microsoft.com
- search.windowsmedia.com
Search
- advertising.microsoft.com
- m.bing.com
- http://www.bing.com
- http://www.bing.com/travel
Partner Sites
Community
- facebook.com
- ivillage.com
- tinypic.com
Health
- *.menshealth.com
- *.runnersworld.com
- righthealth.com
News
- al.com
- cleveland.com
- mlive.com
- nbc.com
- nj.com
- nola.com
- online.wsj.com
- oregonlive.com
- pennlive.com
- plusnetwork.com
- syracuse.com
Research/Information
- acronyms.thefreedictionary.com
- encyclopedia.farlex.com
- encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com
- hubpages.com
- idioms.thefreedictionary.com
- internetbrothers.com
- legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com
- medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com
- thefreedictionary.com
Search
- surfcanyon.com
Again, this is a representative list, not an exhaustive one. The big issue on the horizon is: what will happen to the caliber of ths list in a post-partnership world?
where would i find a full list of those adcenter partners?
AFAIK, Microsoft does not publish a list of partners, and in any case such a list would quickly become stale.
adCenter’s “Publisher Performance Report” (from the Reports Tab) includes the “Website URL” where your ads are displayed. Agregate data from multiple campaigns/multiple time-frames and you can begin to get an idea where your ads are being displayed.
Use of Search Partners is not optional, and one cannot opt out of specific sites for Search (though you can for the adCenter Content Network ad display). Be glad that the quality of the sites utilized appear to be of very high caliber.
I should be thankful for this informative site. I started my adCenter ads a 2 weeks ago and was wondering where the Impressions came from. I tried to use the keywords in Bing and Yahoo and I cannot find my ads that are active for days already. I started to search for the affiliates sites of MS and I found out that the surfcanyon.com was able to display my ads using the keywords.
I would like to know why my ads are not displaying in Bing or Yahoo using my keywords?
Is there a way to become partner with AdCenter in the way you can become partner with Adwords?
No. MSN’s Content Network ads show on other MSN properties (and a few other large-brand properties) but not on a broad network of sites like Google’s AdSense network.