Top 10 tips to solve MSN AdCenter bulk upload problems
Since the launch of MSN AdCenter my personal experience has been somewhat interesting to say the least. The few campaigns I do run are relatively small, though highly targeted and are happily sat there bringing in a solid return. I’m still surprised by the lack of serious competition on many terms. So far so good then right? Well, not really… especially when it comes to launching campaigns with thousands of keywords.
Trying to do anything on mass i.e. bulk uploads, multiple bid adjustments etc seems to be nigh on impossible. If you’re lucky enough to have your own AdCenter Rep to help you with your account I can only recommend that you treat them well as they are definitely a rare species.
Bulk uploading is just one thing that I wanted to mention here having spent a mind destroying 3 hours trying to get their submission tool to work. Try as I might I was presented time after time with a default error insisting that I have to save the file as a valid excel file (check) and that I must not have the file open in Excel when uploading (check). After a 30 minute stint on Google it appears that I’m not the only one cursing Adcenter and it’s bogus error messages.
Suggestions for a successful submission ranged from the very sensible, use the .csv template rather than .xls to the slightly odd, click control before uploading! What’s that all about?
Below are my Top 10 tips to solving your AdCenter woes…
- 1) Export an existing order and use that as your base template.
- 2) Be careful with plural/singular terms – MSN sees many of them as the same.
- 3) Duplications – MSN “sees” words such as “of”, “for”, “an”, “a” as dupes according to their own rep although they are addressing this.
- 4) Check your character lengths especially if using {keyword} and {params} as you might dynamically insert a phrase that’s too long. As a reminder the limits are as follows: Ad Title = 25 chars. Description = 70 chars. Display URL = 35 chars.
- 5) Too many keywords. It appears that Adcenter has a limit of 10,000 per submission.
- 6) File size limit. Check that your .xls or .csv is no larger than 2mb.
- 7) If your title or description contains a comma then make sure that you encase the data within that column with double “quotiation marks, like so”
- 8) If you’re using .xls files double check that the other tabs in the file have no data within them.
- 9) Add the Adcenter domain to your list of trusted domains within your browser settings to avoid any security issues.
- 10) Hold control when clicking submit – not sure what this is supposed to do!
Super Mega Bonus tip.
- 11) Use Internet Explorer!
You may laugh at that last tip and the conspiracy theorists amongst you will no doubt have a field day but I can’t recommend this tip enough. I mentioned above that I struggled with this for 3 hours solid, I tried all of the above tips, created multiple submission sheets using all sorts of weird techniques and only at the last moment, feeling rather deflated did I think about trying a different browser just for a laugh! I use FireFox by default and was absolutely gobsmacked when the same submission sheet that was declined by Adcenter just seconds before was greeted with some MSN loving and uploaded in a flash and with no errors at all. Perhaps IE is good for something after all? ;)
It has to be said that eliminating a potential 10% of your market buy not testing your system on multiple browsers is a serious schoolboy error and one that MSN can’t really be forgiven. What ever next? Banning those who use Linux and OS X? Come on Bill, if you want our hard earned cash you’re gonna have to sort it out and play fair.
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Cunning of them. Microsoft has a good reason now to have advetisers use IE then, which is absurd by the way.