I logged into one of my MS AdCenter accounts today to find that the web user interface has finally been updated, giving me a chance to poke around and review it.
The development team has switched from using an aspect ratio that left a lot of redundant white space within the browser, to an interface that expands to the full size of your browser. Font sizes are larger and now you can navigate via tabs to all ad groups, keywords and ads.
Another noticeable change is the move away from the Excel type of Sort function (it used to ask you if you wanted to sort by a-z or z-a). Now if you sort by something like Spend you can move between tabs it retains that sorting.
Cost per acquisition (CPAs) information is now available for each tab, where it was previously only available on the keywords. This provides the quick overview you need when appraising the current status of the campaign.
When I logged in the columns were set to show:
- Campaign: Campaign Name
- Delivery: Eligible/Campaign Paused
- Status: Active/Paused
- Budget: $$$
- Budget type: Daily/Monthly
- Spend: More $$
- Clicks
- Impressions
- CTR
- Avg. Pos
- Avg. CPC
- Avg. CPM
- CPA
- Conversions
- Negative Keywords
This makes the interface a little cluttered (I am a notepad type of uncluttered girl), so removing Delivery, Avg. CPM and Negative Keywords makes it visually more appealing. However, I logged out and logged back in again and the columns return to the default view. I would like to save the column view I selected.
Another thing I am still not happy with is the column sequence. As we still cannot change the columns around (like Google AdWords allows) the Spend/Clicks/Impressions view still makes me a little annoyed.
Another layout issue I have is with not being able to see all campaigns in one view. They have split 38 campaigns into two page views. They have added a filter function to the interface which helps, but I think it should be my choice whether I want to view all campaigns on one page. To save the filter you just name it, click apply and it then allows you to select it in the future. Like AdWords the filters you create are only for the tab you are on. So if you create a filter on the Campaign tab, you will not see it on the Ad Group tab and you’ll need to recreate it. No big deal really.
Another addition to the interface is the graphs. When you first log in they may not be showing, but by clicking the little down arrow next to Account performance trend it will allow you to see graphed performance statistics. Unlike Google AdWords where you can select to compare two metrics, or a metric over a date range etc, it only shows one metric for each graph (five graphs in total).
AdCenter Campaign Performance Graphs
You can now do bulk edits within the interface without moving between screens to access the information. You can also choose to apply the new values to the other selected rows. At the campaign level this includes the Status (Active or Paused) and the Budget.
If you go to the keywords tab with no campaign or ad group previously selected the interface forces you to filter the results to a campaign and an ad group before it will show you any information.
I would still like to see an integrated search query report like we use daily in AdWords to help quickly troubleshoot wayward spending and help with negative keyword builds.
So there are a few more tweaks they need to iron out in my opinion, but you can tell the development team responsible for the interface has worked hard to get it to where it is today and I am sure we will see further updates down the line as more feedback is provided.