Reports
The final tab in the adCenter dashboard is the Reports tab. Like Yahoo! and Google, this tab contains
reporting capabilities to help you monitor and maintain your PPC ads. When you click the Reports
tab, you’re taken to the Create New Reportpage, where you can create new reports. Once you’ve
created a first report it will appear on the Recent Reports tab with any other reports that you may
have run in the past. You can choose to leave the report there or delete it if you no longer need it.Also within the Reports tab is the Report Templates tab. This is where you’ll find any templates that
you’ve created for reports. Storing a template here makes the process of generating more specialized
reports much faster. You don’t need to create a new report type each time you need to generate it.
Simply save the report as a template; then the next time you want to run a report, select the tem-
plate during the report creation process.Overall, Microsoft adCenter is a little different than either Yahoo! or Google, but the same basic
concepts and capabilities apply. One big difference between the three PPC programs, however, is
traffic. According to studies done by industry analysts, Google tends to have very high traffic but
it’s one of the least expensive PPC programs. It would seem that Google, then, would be the logical
choice for a PPC campaign. However, it’s possible that under the right circumstances, Microsoft’s
adCenter might have a much better conversion rate. It’s one of the most expensive PPC programs
you’ll find, but the audience is smaller, so the traffic is better targeted and the conversion rate can
be much better for some ads.Yahoo! has the highest traffic of any of the three, but the conversions at Yahoo! are not as high as
at either Google or adCenter. Some experts believe that it all comes out in the wash. For example,
because Google has high traffic, medium conversions, and low cost, it can be as effective as adCenter
with its higher costs, lower traffic, and higher conversions.It makes it difficult to decide where you should invest your PPC budget, and that’s the reason many
organizations use more than one PPC campaign provider. Using multiple PPC vendors means better
coverage with your PPC ad, which can lead to better conversions.166
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