Earlier today I visited the MSN AdCenter Site and got the following message:

A new version of adCenter is coming soon
All campaigns will remain active during the upgrade, but account access will be unavailable. Please check back on Sunday, February 19, 2006 at 2:00 A.M. Pacific Time.

So it looks like we MSN will be releasing a new version of AdCentre today, here’s what MSN Have to say about this new update on their new MSN AdCenter Blog:

adCenter Update: Sign-in Closed for 24 Hours 2/18/06 

The new adCenter release is currently planned for tomorrow – Saturday, 2/18/06. The update starts at 3 A.M. Pacific Standard Time (PST) and will take approximately 24 hours. During this time, you will not be able to sign in to adCenter, but your ads will continue to be served and be tracked for reporting.

We kept customer feedback top-of-mind when planning this release, so we’re looking forward to seeing what you think.

You’ll find significant updates to order creation and campaign management. Our goal here is to simplify the process so that you can more easily create, manage, and track your adCenter campaigns.

Key changes you’ll see after the release:

• When you sign in, the first page you see is now the “Campaigns” tab, and there’s a greater distinction between campaigns and orders. Campaigns and orders now have their own elements, historical stats, and summary pages.
• There’s a simplified order creation process; it’s now 4 steps: Order Settings, Ads, Keywords and Pricing. And, the Order Settings tab includes targeting elements.
• You’ll be able to delete campaigns and orders without first deleting all keywords and ads.
• Edit your budget, bidding, and incremental pricing options in one place the new Pricing tab.
• Do research while you create orders.
• There’s a new Keyword Research Tool as well, with keyword alternatives, pre-sales data, and demographic info.
• When you create your keyword lists, you’ll see the keyword research and idea tool on the Keywords tab.

More cool stuff: manage your ads and keywords more easily.

• When you create or edit ads, you’ll see a real-time preview on the right.
• As you type ad text and titles, the character limits update to match what you’ve got in the text field.
• All keyword/ad rejections will now show reason codes.
• The Ad Description field is now called “Ad Text.”
• The negative match option is now called “excluded keywords.”

And:

• When using incremental bidding, you can set a relative percentage applied across all keyword bids instead of a specified dollar amount, so if you change your base bids, the additional targeted bid now adjusts automatically.
• Apply your negative keywords at the order level.
• If you want, apply your base bid amounts across all of your orders.
• U.S. city-based targeting options now include a corresponding state.

Feedback from adCenter advertisers in the U.S. pilot and live operations in France and Singapore guided the changes in this release. We thank you for your input, and keep it coming let us know what you think of the changes after you sign in and click around.

Also – take a look at what Oilman, PPC Discussions, and adCenter Insider have to say about the upcoming changes.

Thanks!
Carolyn, adCenter Community team

Via: MSN AdCenter Blog