Has anybody else had an issue with adCenter & their editorial team? They don't seem to know their own trademark policy - it seems that every time I submit an ad with a trademark in it (which directs to an affiliate site), the keywords/ads are rejected due to "exclusive content" because of the trademark & it takes weeks for adCenter to finally realize that their policies are being followed. An affiliate link clearly facilitates the sale of a product or service represented by the trademarked phrase... - my campaign should be approved, according to the policy. I had an old campaign with a trademark running just fine, but when I re-imported the campaign under a new campaign name, everything was rejected! The customer service rep didn't understand why it happened if I had gotten a campaign approved in the past, but couldn't do anything since they don't talk to the editorial team. It's extremely frustrating that customer service can't do anything... they can't talk to the editorial team, they can't talk to the billing department (which I've been told does not exist, and that there's only a button called "force bill"). If customer service reps can't actually do anything, then why do they exist?? Give them some power like the Google or Yahoo reps... Does anybody have a direct contact at adCenter that could help out on this? I've had lots of issues with adCenter in the past (as you may have read here), and when I finally decided to test adCenter again... more disappointment. If anyone from adCenter reads this, please PM me so we can set up a call - I'd really love to start using adCenter on a regular basis, but it's so painful to work with the product & customer service that it's not worth my time.
I have had some brand phrases rejected even though we are an authorized dealer of the brand's products... so I feel your pain.
Dude, I'm in the same boat. I had an ad rejected because I had a trademarked term in the copy. So I removed it. THEN THEY TOLD ME I COULDN'T EVEN HAVE THE TERM IN MY DISPLAY URL! They told me I have to be a 'registered affiliate' to send traffic to the site. I'm in disbelief. They basically told me I have to send a letter to the CPA I want to advertise for, have them sign over TM rights to me, send that letter into MSN, and then and only then, can I send traffic to their site. Its got to be the biggest load of carp I've ever heard of. I've been on the phone 3 times with their support team trying to get a straight answer on this. Basically, I can't send traffic directly an offer. I have to host it on one of my sites and hope it passes their Quality test. What pisses me off the most is I see tons of other people sending traffic straight through. I can't possibly believe they all jumped through the hoops MSN is expecting me to. I just don't get it. Its like they don't want my money!
Recently, we had a competitor bid on our company name, which is fine, but then AdCenter rejected our ad for their company name. We were forced to sumbit a trademark protection request to Microsoft to even things up. Seems pretty stupid to me.
I'm thinking of just forgetting MSN altogether - after I unpaused the old campaign that had gone through the approval process to use a trademark (and it was working fine), a simple visible URL change caused the system to automatically flag the campaign for trademark issues & put it into the rejected state (according to their customer service). Now, I have to wait around 5 business days until somebody sees that I had prior approval, and removes the automatic rejection from that campaign. It's really not worth it. I've even got free money sitting in my account (credits from the major billing issue I encountered), and I'm not even sure I'll spend that. After so much hassle, it doesn't make sense to spend so much time to grab whatever percentage increase in traffic that MSN might drive. Using adCenter has been a VERY disappointing experience.
Agree with you tvmatt. I think they have a rep. that reads these threads (Adcenter411). I suggested this to him a few weeks ago. See point 8): http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showpost.php?p=2979484&postcount=2 I think they should take that suggestion very seriously, lately I have stop adding campaign to AdCenter they create 1/10, on a good day, of the volume from AdWords and they systematically reject keywords/landing pages ...etc... It's like they have to much staff in the compliance dept. And/Or that staff has no clue what making your own pay check means...they need to see this stuff from our perpective. More work + Less Money = Forget about it! Here is one of the "funny" ones. I had this one keyword a mispelling (earns with AdWords), like "The Store" instead of the "TheStore" (an extra space). I wanted my keyword to be bold, so I had "The Store" appear in the ad, will after many calls and emails (just to determine the rejected reason), they said the word is not on your landing page so it is no approved. I had to freken build a new landing page with "The Store" on it to be approved. Man that was worst the $4.31 I made with it since So now I pretty much only create campaigns with Adcenter when they are proven (1 month+) major earners on Adwords and Yahoo. Only then is worth creating it with Adcenter... On the other hand Adwords approves 99% of the stuff, no wonder they are #1 and make so much money. Again my advise for Adcenter: only block "misleading" keyword/ads let the market decide what is relevant or not, your compliance staff is not qualifed. Cheers, Chris
I've exchanged emails with adCenter411, but it's pretty much the same "I'll pass that on to the editorial team" deal. The most bizarre part about this is that as of a few months ago, advertisers who hold trademarks were being told that adCenter could not apply any trademark protection (just like Yahoo) as long as the ad met certain conditions (information site, reseller, generic, etc...). Looks like everyone is getting the runaround.