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Microsoft adLab Tools Review Part 2 – Keywords & Content

Thu, 13 Mar 2008 12:01:13 GMT

As discussed in an introduction post, Microsoft adLab showcases some of the innovative tools and technologies our researchers are helping to build, providing advertisers and publishers with the very best ways to connect with consumers.

Today, I’ll single out just two from the Keywords & Content category on the adLab website.

The new Entity Analysis tool includes data for both the English and French language. Simply put the algorithm breaks down complex user queries into separate entities making it easier for the delivery engine to serve the most relevant ad.

These examples give you an idea how a query can be broken out into separate words or phrases that make an entity. Applied to adCenter, this should mean an ad for a house builder that specialises in installing “gates” would no longer phrase match to “Bill Gates”, meaning a more relevant set of results on the search page, and a potential increase in click-through rate for the advertiser.

The Detecting Commercial Intention tool is a favourite of mine, as it helps determine whether a user’s query is meant to result in a sale or transaction of some sort, or whether they are simply looking for information or gathering data to inform an action at a later stage in the buying cycle.

Results for the American football team “seattle seahawks” show a low commercial query probability as it’s most likely the user is looking for information on the team, maybe the latest scores or line up, but they’re certainly not looking to purchase anything.....yet.

Conversely the commercial intent of “seattle seahawks shirt” is high as it’s product-orientated and the user is obviously looking for shirts related to the team.

This tool is very useful for determining the kind of ad copy you could write for these two very different queries.

For “seattle seahawks” you might write copy that is somewhat informational – “Find the latest team news and scores and check out our online merchandise store.” With this copy are catering for the information-gathering nature of the query, but also letting the user know there is a store on your site should they be looking to purchase souvenirs too.

The “seattle seahawks shirt” ad copy should be more of a commercial nature – “Buy Seattle Seahawks shirts in all sizes securely online. Free shipping!” The users is obviously looking to buy a shirt, so make sure your ad tells them what and how they can purchase one from you.

For more on how to write great ad copy, check out our Creative Services Team’s archive of posts here: Ad Copy Best Practice

Next time we’ll look at some of adLab’s forecasting tools.

Cheers

Mel – adCenter Community team

Microsoft adLab Tools Review Part 1 – Introduction

Thu, 31 Jan 2008 09:27:37 GMT

Ever since Microsoft adCenter Labs launched nearly 2 years ago, it has been accessed by thousands of advertisers, search engine optimisers (SEO) and publishers, plus people just plain curious to know what we’re up to, and what we’re planning in the online marketing space.

Known simply as adLab for short, the site was set up to showcase some of the innovative tools and technologies that many of our researchers, dotted around the globe, are working on as part of our on-going commitment to providing advertisers and publishers with the very best ways to connect with consumers.

In their own words:

“Staying one step ahead of customer needs through innovative digital advertising technologies is the mission of adCenter Labs, where state-of-the-art-research, breakthrough innovation, rapid prototyping, and large-scale system integration provide customers with progressive, cutting edge marketing strategies.
With over 100 researchers, analysts and developers, our team cultivates exciting technologies in the areas of paid search, behaviour targeting, contextual advertising, social network analysis, and image/video mining.

The eventual goal of our work is to help advertisers deliver more relevant and interesting advertising to our customers, at the same time demonstrating Microsoft's expertise and innovation in the area, and our dedication to being the leader in improving and changing the online advertising industry.”

Over the next few months I’ll be reviewing some of the tools and technologies, showing you what they’re for, how they work, and how they can be used to help you make better decisions regarding your PPC campaigns or your SEO efforts and direction.

Stay tuned!

Cheers

Mel – adCenter Community Team

New and Updated Microsoft adCenter Labs Demos

Thu, 02 Nov 2006 22:29:33 GMT

The adCenter Labs site offers a set of tools to help advertisers research the best way to target their audience and optimize their campaigns.

The Labs team has updated their Search Funnels by adding 4 million keywords. This tool helps customers visualize and analyze search behaviors. Given the users’ search queries, you can see what users will typically search for before and after a specific query search.

The Labs team also added a new demo: Keyword Forecast. This demo displays the search term's impression count forecast and demographic predictions in any format: Flash, picture, or text.

Check out these and other demos as well, including Forecasting Search Volume Seasonality and Keyword Mutation Detection, on the demo page.

Thanks!
Carolyn
Microsoft adCenter Community Team