Fine-Tune Your Account When You’re Pressed for Time

In an ideal world, you’d have unlimited time to fine-tune your adCenter account and make sure it is running at its full potential. But in today’s dynamic business world, time is often at a premium. Consider scheduling a block of time each week to review and modify your adCenter account.

This weekly check-in can help you maximize your search investment and is as easy as setting up a recurring item in your Microsoft Outlook calendar. For the weeks you don’t have time to dedicate to your account, we have outlined a few quick tips on how to review and improve your campaigns in a matter of minutes.
Three Things to Keep an Eye On
When you log in to your account, the first Campaign View page is a snapshot of all your different campaigns. From here, you will have a fairly good idea of how healthy your account is. However, we recommend that you dig a little further to get a better idea of how your campaigns are performing. Click the Reports tab at the top of the page, and then select a Keyword Performance report from the drop-down menu for your desired time frame. This will give you a detailed summary idea of how each keyword is performing. The three main areas you should make a point to monitor are:
  • Conversions. It's the best way to assess how well your campaign is performing by letting you see your exact return on investment. Learn more about tracking conversions.
  • CTR (click-through rate). Because all clicks might not carry the same value for advertisers, adCenter categorizes the clicks as either standard-quality clicks or low-quality clicks. To make the most effective use of your advertising spend, it's important to closely monitor your ad click traffic for any unexplained changes in click volume and click-through rate. Learn more about click quality.
  • Average Ad Position. The position of your ad on a Bing results page or a content-based web page is determined by how it ranks against competing ads. Rank is determined by many factors, including the amount you bid for the keyword, your ad's overall relevance, and your ad’s click-through rate. Learn more about ad positioning.

Time Saving Tip: You can schedule recurring reports, and others, to be emailed to you on a regular basis, rather than manually running it again and again. Learn how you can schedule an adCenter report.

The table below can help you quickly diagnose, and potentially solve, your adCenter issues:


Ad Position

CTR

Potential Problem

Potential Solution

Low

High

Your ad copy is working, but you’re in a competitive market.

Increase your bid to improve your position and drive more qualified traffic.

Low

Low

Neither your keywords nor your ad copy is attractive to your searchers.

Reassess your keyword selection, as well as the ad title, copy and URL.

High

Low

You’re bidding enough but your ad copy should be more productive.

Spend more time on your keywords and creative, and you could even reduce your bid price.

How to Get More Clicks

The following Learning Center articles can help you find the right mix for advertising your product:


Zeroing In on the Right Targets
Targeting your adCenter ad is a great way for you to improve your ad’s position and to get in front of your audience. Use the tips below to reach consumers that better fit your target criteria.
  • Delete poorly performing keywords or ads.
  • Bid only on 'Exact' keyword matches.
  • Use Demographic Targeting and localize your campaigns to certain regions.
  • Add local keywords to the phrases you bid on—for example 'florist in Birmingham'.

Learn more about how to target your ads in adCenter.


More Useful Links to Explore


Also, make sure to check out the adCenter Community where you can read informative blogs, listen to podcasts by search experts, post and respond to adCenter questions in the Forum, and much more. You can also follow us on Twitter and Facebook to keep up to date on the latest adCenter trends.