As most internet marketers should certainly know by now, Yahoo Search Marketing and Microsoft AdCenter (online console for managing ads on Bing.com) finalized their “search alliance” in late 2009. The Search Alliance partnership site outlines how the two engines will work together here. The most important take away is that the Yahoo! console you’ve grown to know and love (ha!) will go away, and you will manage both Yahoo! and Bing via Microsoft AdCenter only.
It’s still months away, but there are things you can do now to prepare for the merge. First, open an adCenter account and import existing AdWords or Yahoo! account. Importing to adCenter now will give you enough time to familiarize yourself with the adCenter online console and desktop tool so there’s less of a learning curve when the merge actually happens.
Download Microsoft adCenter’s Desktop tool
Without these desktop tools, the export/import work becomes extremely tedious because of adCenter’s cumbersome online console. These free, time-saving desktop applications make managing your PPC (pay per click) account quick and easy. The tools allow advertisers to copy and/or move ad groups, keywords and ads, and also allow for bulk changes and mass updates to keywords, text and image ads, bids and more. I find AdWords Editor is easier to use, and especially like thier duplicate keyword finder, keyword grouping and find & replace tools.
IMPORTING TO ADCENTER:
First, you must export a current account (in this example I’m using AdWords). To export whole account (to CSV) from AdWords, follow these instructions. NOTE: make sure you first “Get Recent Changes” to ensure you are downloading most current version of account.
Then, login to adCenter, click on the Campaigns tab and select “Import Campaigns” from the More drop-down menu (above the Monthly budget column). Follow the steps for finding and importing the file and once you see the “Your file imported successfully” confirmation you’ll have a few more steps to take before activating the campaign(s). (If you run into problems with the import, you can follow this second export option provided by adCenter online)
Next, open adCenter desktop and Download Changes (button at top left). This should download your recent adCenter import to your desktop tool so you can make some necessary changes like:
* adding negative keywords (which do not get imported)
*adjusting geo-targeted locations
*setting budget
*making bids adjustments
*changing ad and/or keyword destination tracking URLs
Finally, once you’ve completed and uploaded the changes (via green Sync Changes button at top left of desktop tool), the final step is change ad groups from “Draft” status to “Active”. Go back into online console and click the campaign name to go to Ad Group view. Here you’ll see all ad groups with status listed as Draft. You will need to select all ad groups then click Submit (button above start date column), which should change status to “Active”.
Of course, if you aren’t yet familiar enough with the desktop tools, or just don’t have the time to learn them, you also have the option of contacting adCenter and requesting QuickLaunch or Performance Improvement help here. This will put you in touch with an adCenter rep who can either walk you though the import process or else take your CSV export and complete the upload for you.
I believe the most important preparation you can do at this point is to stay informed via Search Alliance page, which has links to each engine’s “transition center”, but mainly familiarizing yourself with adCenter’s online interface and desktop tool.