New MSN Adcenter Changes Include Arch-Rival Firefox

August 2, 2006

MSN Adcenter, the Microsoft challenge to the pay-per-click advertising empire of Google Adwords recently alerted advertisers that they will make the following upgrades on Saturday, August 5, between 10 A.M. and 12 A.M.(Midnight) EST.

1. Microsoft adCenter will now work with the Firefox 1.5 browser
2. Daily, weekly, and monthly data will be updated on a more frequent basis.
3. Advertisers may filter the time frame for which the campaign and order summaries should show, instead of viewing them in the life-to-date format.
4. Various user-interface changes to the reporting tab.

I appreciate that MSN Adcenter broke from Microsoft unwritten policies about shutting out the Firefox browser. To this day, I still can’t use much of anything correctly with Firefox on the Microsoft website. I’m not talking about unoptimized pages either – the website practically says, “You need to use Internet Explorer!”

MSN Customer Service Making Strides Past Google

MSN is also differentiating themselves from Google and Yahoo on the customer service front. With Google, advertisers must have enormous AdWords budgets receive a flesh-and-blood advertising representative. The only other option is a feedback form that leaves the advertiser feeling very detached. “When will I get an answer,” or “Will I get an answer?” Conversely, MSN provides a toll-free number for advertisers to reach a live operator. My previous experiences included extremely fast response time, and knowledgeable staff. MSN must understand the importance of being able to reach a live person for quick resolution, as they have apparently staffed their best customer sevice staff on the phones. Their email support is mediocre at best, so stick with the phone support. If you have any other questions about the MSN adCenter changes, contact MSN adCenter Support.