TopSide Media

The Microsoft Advertising Accredited Professional program’s Member Spotlight focuses on an Accredited Professional’s business and how they’ve used their adCenter expertise to optimize that business’ performance.


Each month, an Accredited Professional is selected at random and asked to share his or her story.


This month’s pro – Gary Walker – talks about how he uses adCenter and Accredited Professional program training in his small business, TopSide Media, a Texas-based search marketing firm founded in 2005.




• Member Name:  Gary Walker
• Company Name:  TopSide Media
• Size of company: 1-10 employees

Q: Tell us about your company?
We’re located in Austin, Texas and have been in the search marketing business since 2005. We’re PPC specialists with a sub-specialty in segmenting and tracking phone calls from web traffic.  We find our happiest clients to be those who attempted to manage PPC in-house with less success.


Q: How have you used adCenter in your business?
We use API access for our custom reporting tool, and we’ve found adCenter adds a substantial amount of additional traffic for all our clients. It generates leads and online purchases for some clients at a favorable cost over other sources of traffic. And we’ve gotten excellent support from our adCenter representative.


Q: And how has the Accredited Professional program and its training opportunities affected your use of the adCenter tool?
The Training Center is useful. It’s a free resource to help you understand the power of adCenter and how it differs from the previous versions and other PPC user interfaces.


Q: Do you have recommendations for other adCenter users?
Yes. For advertisers, I’d say, engage a PPC specialist who is trained and experienced.  For PPC providers, I’d say, study the resources in the Training Center; understand how adCenter works differently from other sources of PPC traffic. And take the exam and get certified to set yourself apart from those who offer, but do not specialize in, PPC.