Self Employed Success

I began beta-testing MSN AdCenter last week. The interface is easy to use, and a great mix of Google and Yahoo tools. If you’re using Google Adwords or Yahoo Search Marketing, you’ll have a very easy time figuring out how to use MSN AdCenter.

Unlike Yahoo Search Marketing, MSN AdCenter and Google give you BOTH the impressions and clicks on the same chart. This is so important for determining if there’s enough traffic for a search phrase to warrant even keeping it on your advertising list. (Yahoo, are you listening??)

The prices for bids are pretty good on MSN, but then again, there aren’t a lot of people advertising through MSN AdCenter yet. Google Adwords bid pricings are getting very high and climbing, and I wonder if there will be a time when small business owners simply can’t afford the cost of pay-per-click advertising at all.

I’ve been advertising for a week with MSN AdCenter and haven’t gotten ANY clicks, and very few impressions. I’ll have to do some research into how much they’re rolling this out in their search engine. It may be that they’re still serving the old ads that came through Yahoo Search Marketing and gradually moving over to their own AdCenter ads as time goes by.

What I like about having all three pay-per-click schemes available to me is that I can customize what keyword phrases I want to bid for on each search engine. If I rank well in the organic listings for one search engine, then I don’t pay to advertise for that same phrase on that engine. If I rank poorly for a phrase on one engine, and well for the same phrase on a different search engine, I can put my money where it will do the most good.

For example, I have a great ranking for “small business coach” on MSN Search, and an average ranking for “small business coach” on Yahoo. So I’ll put my money into Yahoo advertising for that phrase and not invest at all in MSN advertising for the same phrase.

I’ll keep you informed of my results after a month of testing…

Related posts:

1. MSN AdCenter
2. I’m Beta Testing MSN AdCenter! Yay!
3. How Often Should You Update Your Blog?