2 Questions for Our Customers

I want to evangelise the small advertiser. The guys big enough to have an agency, but small enough that the overhead of managing multiple campaigns in multiple places is a big part of the decision of where they should spend their money.

For them, being able to integrate closely (particularly on the search side) with AdWords (am I allowed to write 'AdWords' here? Damn. That's twice) would be huge.

Any chance of that?

Hello guys,

First of all, great initiative. I know you guys listen carefully to feedback, sot hanks for that. From my search point of view, if there was one and only one thing to focus on, I would say: the tools. You have some great tools, and some great data in the backend, and you present / package these tools so much better than your competitors. Plus, we are all data junkies, so the more there is out there, the better imo.

- AdCenter labs are great, and have been from day one. Now I know these tools, but maybe not everyone does. They are a great source of information not only to actively optimize campaigns, but also to present great data to a prospective client.

- AdIntelligence (otherwise known as the excel plugin) is also such a smart step... We all work on excel, so anything that can help do the transition from excel to the platform isn great.

So how about a button in excel that uploads my keyword list instantly into my account? That would be great! :)

Hope this helped somehow,

Regards,

Eloi

Hi Mark - great questions and thrilled to see you guys seeking feedback!

On Search: it would be terrific to get more data about traffic, click-through rates and search volumes. I think right now, a lot of advertisers and marketers are finding the keyword search estimates to be off, even directionally, which can be frustrating and cause them to revert to Google's AdWords API. If Microsoft produces better, more reliable, more complete data, we're all going to use your service instead :-)

On Display: I'm not a display guy, but more self-service options and walkthroughs/tours would be great. It's hard for me to learn enough to know if I should be investing here from visiting advertising.microsoft.com/learning-center or advertising.microsoft.com/.../budget-options. Perhaps getting some bloggers to write case studies, tutorials, and evangelize would be helpful, too.

Thanks much!

Interesting...

1 - Data, data, data. And no, I don't want Star Trek Next Generation doll. Instead I'd like more insight & research into how display, search and social all tie in & link together. I know Looking Glass is on its way, and that ties into my 2nd point.

2 - Please stop releasing stuff in the US months before UK/ROW - last time I checked, the only 2 markets where digital has overtaken TV were both in Europe!

Cheers.

1 - It would be great if Bing really made an effort to be international, like Google has done. I think this would contribute the a broader appeal of the search engine. I personally would love an option in Portuguese to www.google.pt, a really local option. And I'm sure a lot of people in other markets feel the same.

2 - I would flip Ciarán's question around (sorry Ciarán): data on display/search correlation would be great, specially if it would tell us how to better optimize ad campaigns that use bothe mediums.

Thanks for the opportunity for us to share our feedback.

1 - One area that could help us with Search marketing and to drive more of our clients to advertising on Bing is to make the Corporate Membership available in the UK. We have qualified individuals in our company but being able to display a Company Qualification badge on our site would give it more leverage.

2 - The adCenter Desktop tool is a great help but there are certain elements that are a little 'clunky'. For example, if I were to copy and paste an ad group with paused and active keyword and/or ads, the pasted ad group automatically placed everything as active.

Also, being able to include more negatives within adCenter would allow us to target ads to more specific searches and eliminate the irrelevant ones.

Thanks

Thank you for listening to your users. I have a few items that I wish Microsoft would take care of:

We have a much more difficult time convincing clients to purchase advertising if your search results are poor. So here are 2 things I would do if I were a power-that-be at Microsoft:

(1) Knock it off with the social media. There is a time and place for it (for users), and you are not using well at all. Social media is overemphasized and easily gamed. If you honestly want higher quality search results, utilizing grade/middle/high school popularity contests (via the Web) is not a wise choice.

I know you won't do this, and you probably think I am crazy for bringing it up, but honestly? If you were really smart, you would take those words to heart.

(2) Hire back the people that created Yahoo SiteExplorer and LISTEN TO THEM. These people are really, really smart and are amazing with interfaces. Better than Google...trust me. They will make better interfaces in Webmaster Tools and adCenter.

Has anybody mentioned "more data" yet?

ALL of them??

OK then. That's me sorted.

First off: kudos for being so open and forthcoming, it's great to see that attitude. I can only comment on search, as I don't know enough about Display to say anything meaningful. As far as search goes I think MS should focus on continually improving the search results, and possibly involving (more) SEO's in that process. There's loads of SEO's who'd love to help MS out in making sure there's some real competition in the search market space.

There's not as much a need for innovations in search, as I think there is a need for better results, all the time.

More relevant results.

Better geo targeting for local results.

More demographic data.

Lots more creative integration with third party providers' structured data.

A different logo.

Luxurious Christmas gifts for the head of content at large online media companies.

Hey Mark,

Outside of Canada and the UK, there is a lot of "international".  Even though MS has a bit of a struggle in global markets in search, I think it would be valuable if you guys could be more transparent in your international initiatives and partnerships (both strengths and weaknesses).  There is a lot of marketers who would love to see a new player...even if you have to go in vertical by vertical.

Please continue/accelerate rolling out Bing enhancements overseas. It's hard to keep them happy in Paree, when they see what's available in the US. Word gets out.

On a personal level, I am longing for a way to file web pages in topic folders on the fly. Could Bing do that?

Thank you for all the comments!  I have consolidated and have shared with our development teams.  Keep it coming!

Thank you for asking the community-

Revenue tracking and indepth conversion metrics would be huge!

Also the limited date ranges allowed in the UI are frustrating.

Agreed more data, and more international data would be super as not everyone's clients live in the US.

Display could benefit from benchmarks based on live data such as what other advertisers are getting right now. Also more assistance around reporting, load times and maybe even a health check that flags any ads not correctly functioning due to broken links/flash errors and removes them until they have been corrected.