Today for work I decided to signup for Microsoft adCenter to try out some advertising on other platforms. We’ve already had great success with Google Adwords so I figured since competition must be much less we could give MSN a shot.

After signing up and creating my first add, I was able to get into the adCenter control panel and begin actually doing things. Regardless, I will get straight to the point. Here is why this thing sucks:

•  After creating my ad in the initial process, it never warned me I had dis-allowed content in my ad (MSN doesn’t like phone numbers!). No, it created my ad all fine and dandy, and only after I had logged into the panel and checked it out did I see my ad was not approved.
• Everytime I load the godamn site in IE7 I am asked to install some ActiveX stuff. I loaded the site in IE7 because when I tried to use it in Firefox, it seemed buggy and unresponsive. This was actually the case regardless of browser.
• Too much Loading …. What the hell is going on. I am not on a 56k modem anymore, why is it taking over 20 seconds for a simple page to load? It’s not a huge report, all it has to load is my single ad I’ve created so I can modify and look at it.
• They charged me $5 to setup an account. Sure, I got a promotional $25 of credit but why do you have to charge me $5 to get going? Sure, it’s pennies for a business but Google never asked me for money until I actually started getting clicks.
• The site, like many other Microsoft sites simply does not work in Firefox. Fuck you guys.
• The interface is not intuitive at all. Where are my stats, how do I get them? I .. don’t understand at all. I click on Keywords for my campaign and I do not even SEE them unless I click a very subtle link.

For a product that you are literally throwing money at, this sure is a piece of crap. I am glad this won’t be the main advertising platform we are using but the competition is so slim (I wonder why, because it sucks?) that putting ads up on here will benefit us in the long run.

If you’re looking to sell your product/service, Microsoft adCenter will be good for the fact that you will be paying much less per click, but you will be getting less exposure and you have to deal with a horrible interface. Advertise on Google, then put in some extra cash to here for some extra cheap clicks.