Over the past one year of its launch Microsoft adCenter has grown a lot. Won't say that it matches up with Google's adWords and Yahoo's ad serving system but still it is doing a remarkable job.

A brief history, Microsoft adCenter was launched in March 2006 in US. It became live in UK in August and in February this year in Canada.

Some of the features that MSN offers its advertisers are remarkable as compared to the ones offered by Google and Yahoo! Joe Griffin at Search Engine Journal informs about the 'day parting' feature. Joe explains it as, “ Day parting is when you select the time and days you want your ad displayed. As an example if you sell B2B software you might want to run your ads from 8:00-6:00PM, whereas a real estate agent might be better served running ads from 5:00-10:00PM.”

This definitely sounds like a helpful feature. Even Joe sounds pretty hopeful in terms of Paid Search Technology. Joe also informs about other benefits of opting for MSN adCenter model. The beginners benefits starts with lower bid prices. Microsoft has lower bid prices as of now because of the less number of advertisers. The support offered by Microsoft is also commendable.  MSN asCenter also offers an excellent way to target demographically.

Also, 'it has just rolled out a new Quick Launch program designed for marketers spending $30 a day or more.' Adcenter representative on WebmasterWorld informs, “it's a program where a media specialist can help you get your campaigns migrated over to adcenter. You can fill out this form, and you should be contacted about 48 hours after they receive it."

Read more about user reviews on Quick Launch here.

Just recently Microsoft upgraded adCenter beta site. Joe gives an overview of some neat features. 

• Turning conversion tracking on and off at the campaign level is easy
• The interface as a whole is fast, but you may want to upgrade to IE7, as it pretty heavy on javascript.
• You don’t have to generate reports to export data. It’s real easy to export any type of date with MSN adCenter.
• You can turn on demographic targeting at the campaign level. Here you can select if you want male or female and you can target specific age groups. 
• MSN also offers a budget spread, so you can easily set a monthly budget, turn on the option to evenly spread your ad over the month, and sit back and watch your money go away evenly over the month and not all at once.

Mark Barrera also informs about some more interesting features of the beta site upgrades.

• Directly import your campaign structure from other search advertising programs into adCenter. Update your existing campaigns, ad groups, ads, and keyword bids and match types using a single Microsoft Excel or CSV file.
• Preview your ads on Live Search. Visualize how your ads will show up on Live Search with Ad Preview in the ad list.
• Search within your campaigns. Full text search allows you to easily find ads, keywords, ad groups, accounts, or campaigns that contain all or part of a query string.
• Edit keywords in bulk to simultaneously change settings for all keywords or delete poor-performing keywords from your campaigns.
• Download your adCenter datasets into Excel with one click—making campaign management that much simpler.

Microsoft is actually trying very hard to catch up with Google's AdWords and Yahoo!'s Panama upgrade. The campaigns with AdCenter are easy and time saving. Moreover, they are cost effective as well. Infact, Microsoft enthusiasts claim that if you start right now you will gain a lot from it. Though many people complain of a lack of clarity and response with AdCenter. It also took Microsoft six months to make AdCenter compatible with Firefox. However, if for a moment we stop comparing it with Google and Yahoo! the kind of features AdCenter has introduced in the past few months have been appreciable.  

Microsoft AdCenter says:
Microsoft adCenter allows you to pay for your product to appear at the top of those searches. It offers advanced targeting capabilities, enabling you to reach the audience you want, based on the keywords you choose. This means your product gets seen by the people who want to see it – delivering cost-effective online marketing and an increased return on your investment. 

Microsoft is definitely putting in a lot of efforts to live upto the claims. If you are a newbie, it might just do you wonders to start your campaigns with Microsoft Adcenter.