Microsoft just announced that Yahoo! Bing Network is the new name for Microsoft adCenter. The search engine says the new name reflects the commitment of both Microsoft and Yahoo to bring advertisers a broad, high-value, and engaged audience that helps them grow their business.
The advertising platform for Bing Ads is the same as it was for adCenter, but it looks like the log-in page is more in line with the Bing search page with a large, landscape image as the background. The new name of the advertising platform is much more of a rebranding effort rather than changes to the important features of the network. The desktop tool, now called the Bing Ads Editor, has also received a face-lift, but the functionality of the adCenter desktop tool and online interface remain the same.
Microsoft has been hard at work to bring its advertising platform up to par to its Google counterpart. It recently released new features like ad rotation capabilities, URL by match type functionality and other elements to increase the usability of the platform for advertisers. What’s more, it was recently announced that Bing will be the default search engine of the Kindle Fire, which will most likely increase the search market share of the network while decreasing Google’s share.
Good news for Search Engine Marketers: Microsoft adCenter has made improvements throughout its platform to improve advertiser efficiency. Some of the new adCenter features are:
– Location targeting to mirror that of Google AdWords.
The “market” distribution channel will no longer be available as a targeting option and it will be replaced by “language” and “target location” as individual targeting options. Advertisers will now be able to target users physically located in their target area or who include location keywords within their search query. Location options will include all countries that speak the languages selected, groups of certain countries, a single country, a single state or a territory or a single city.
Microsoft says that roll-out of the new location targeting is in progress in the U.S., U.K. and France and it will be available to all users in a few months.
– Ad description lengths increased to 71 characters.
Previously the maximum character length of text ad descriptions was 70. Earlier this month, Microsoft increased the character limit to make it easier for advertisers to import ads from AdWords to adCenter in order to account for the extra punctuation.
– Mobile device targeting now available.
Advertisers are now able to choose which devices they would like to target for their ads and can create separate campaigns to target desktops and laptops versus mobile devices, allowing advertisers to further optimize their campaigns.
– Browser compatibility with Safari and Chrome and mobile devices.
adCenter released browser compatibility with Safari and Chrome as well as new mobile device support for iPad and other devices. The new release increases the ease of access of the advertising platform from a wider variety of browsers and devices.
All of these new modifications to its advertising platform show that Microsoft is listening to its users and taking the necessary steps to improve its usability.
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