For Adobe SearchCenter+, tonight introduces perhaps the most extensive “maintenance release” we’ve ever pushed live to our customers, and that on the heels of the release of version 4.0 – easily our most significant platform upgrade in the history of the product – just four weeks ago. With tonight’s release we are introducing:

• Queued Requests: Allows users to queue up multiple views/projects at once, facilitating multi-tasking and eliminating wasted time waiting for complex queries.
• First-Page Minimum Bid: Applicable both in bid automation and in our new Formulaic Bid Change feature, users can choose to automatically increase/decrease the bids on their keywords in both Google AdWords and Microsoft adCenter accounts to the recommended minimum suggested by each search engine to (likely) attain a first page ranking.
• Ad Platform Report: Displays aggregate data across multiple accounts for a broader view of PPC performance.
• Expanded adCenter Campaign Management Options: Includes device targeting, geo-targeting (with incremental bidding), new budget standards, and Quality Score.
• Enhancements to Key v4.0 Features: Builds upon the success of new UI and application features to further “polish” the v4.0 experience through more powerful filters, greater flexibility with Find & Replace and Formulaic Bid Changes, more detailed change previewing, and much more.

All of that less than a month after we proudly released version 4.0, the new face of the SearchCenter+ platform! I never cease to be amazed at what this extraordinary group of developers can accomplish in such a short period of time.

And in case you haven’t been keeping up with SearchCenter+ development over the past couple of quarters, there’s been a lot going on. For those of you that have been “out of the loop”, let’s recap…

Back in the April we released the industry’s first complete organic search integration into a paid search campaign management and optimization platform. Search marketers no longer need to only manage to part of the search engine results page – now they can leverage traffic and performance data from the non-sponsored side of the equation to help them:

1. Highlight and analyze cross-search-channel trends and synergies
2. Perform more informed and effective bid management
3. Uncover new sources of keyword expansion and refinement opportunities

As part of our organic search integration efforts, we announced a strategic partnership with Conductor, a leader in the SEO technology space, and pushed to market an integration with their Searchlight platform. For our non North American customers, we have also announced a strategic partnership and integration with Searchmetrics, another stellar SEO technology provider that has worked with us to provide enhanced value to SearchCenter users.

During that same time frame, we also introduced the first native integration of internal search terms and performance data into a paid search campaign management and optimization platform – opening a vast world of data to search marketers involving visitor site navigation trends, cross-product merchandising insights, and certainly the most relevant source of keyword suggestions available….anywhere.

We kicked our summer off by pushing live our new Inventory Management tool, the first of its kind to be fully configurable by digital marketers directly in an online user interface. Through this system our users can now have their campaigns automatically adjust to the constant flux of inventory levels that are common to many online businesses, saving them both management time and wasted advertising spend.

But the highlight of the year (at least for me – I hope you’ll agree!) was our release of the next generation of the SearchCenter+ platform, version 4.0. Being chalked full of so many new features and enhancements to the user workflow and experience, it simply wouldn’t do it justice to try to list them all here in a single post. For those of you who have had this new version in your hands for the past several weeks, we’d love to hear how your experience has been thus far and which of the array of new features you’ve found most useful. And for those of you who haven’t had the pleasure…

I’m extending an invitation to everyone in the Omniture “family” to come take a look at SearchCenter+ version 4.0. If you’ve never had a chance to experience the product, you’re in for a treat, and you’ll see very quickly the power of a digital marketing management and optimization tool not superficially “integrated” with select data points coming out of an analytics platform, but rather one very literally built directly upon the foundation of SiteCatalyst and the rest of the industry-leading Adobe Online Marketing Suite, with all the rich data, insights, and actionability that come from that unified Suite platform.

And for those of you that have worked with SearchCenter+ in the past and have since moved on, I invite you to come and take another look. After years of investment and enhancement and truly listening to what our customers need and want the most (including some enhancements that have even SiteCatalyst green with envy), this isn’t like anything you’ve seen from us before. So I invite you: “Come see SearchCenter+ again, for the first time.”

In an effort to make this heightened level of campaign management even easier than in years past, we here at the Omniture Business Unit of Adobe released version 3.7 of SearchCenter+ several weeks ago, and the primary focus of that release was an overhaul of our existing bulk management system. From a high level, the primary enhancements provided in the new system include:

• New file formats… no more “kitchen sink” – export just the information you want
  • Smaller file sizes, easier to manage, quicker to import and export
  • Simplified ad editing workflow (no more copy, paste, edit the new ad, mark the old ad as “deleted”… blah!)
  • No harm in removing or adding in additional columns (this is made possible by the inclusion of the new [SearchCenter] “ID” field in the first column of all bulk files, which clients should simply leave untouched)
• Ability to re-download previous exports – no need to recreate common file requests from scratch each time you need to make changes
• Interface-based importing – no more FTP interactions required for users
• Import/Export Management log detailing all interactions with the bulk management system, including the ability for one user to make and upload changes and another user to review and approve the upload
• Automatic error checking and file validation – be informed immediately if there are any editorial or other common errors in your bulk files
  • Detailed import summary outlining how much was uploaded, which elements were successfully uploaded, and which elements encountered errors
  • Automatic re-export of a file with any uploaded account elements that have errors associated with them so you can immediately address errors and get your campaign changes live on the search engines faster than ever before
• Upload scheduling – giving marketers unprecedented flexibility as to when queued campaign changes will be pushed to the search engines, meaning no more staying up and logging into your account at 11:55pm or stepping away from a Sunday family gathering to simply push “go” on queued up campaign creative changes.

We’re very excited about all that this new system enables our users to do in managing their large PPC campaigns, especially at this busy time of the year. But even with as great as the new functionality is, we realize there are still times when certain of your team members or your search engine reps themselves choose to go in and make campaign management changes directly in the AdWords or adCenter interfaces – and that’s okay. SearchCenter+ continues to allow you to make changes wherever you deem appropriate, supplying bi-directional synchronization functionality that gives you the flexibility to manage your SEM initiatives the way you want to.

If you haven’t given this newest version of SearchCenter+ a test drive, ‘tis the season!

Like what you see in the new version? Have ideas for future product enhancements? Would love to hear your feedback. Please leave comments below or tell us about your ideas at ideas.omniture.com.

Bid Automation for Facebook Ads

On the heels of releasing full support for managing and reporting on the performance of Facebook ads back in May, today’s release enhances that offering by now allowing users to apply bid automation algorithms to all Facebook ads. Whether it be optimizing on overall click traffic coming from these ads, focusing on raising conversion volumes, or driving toward a target CPA, SearchCenter+ can now automate your bid management strategies on Facebook.

Bid Automation for Placements

In addition to extending bid automation to Facebook ads, this newest version of SearchCenter+ also allows users to apply bidding strategies to their Google Display Network (f.k.a. Google Content Network) targeted placements to more effectively reach performance goals on their contextually based advertising programs.

Image Ad Support

Further enhancing our support of contextual advertising, version 3.6.1 of SearchCenter+ now supports the import, creation, management, and tracking of image ads on the Google Display Network. Images for these ads can come in several sizes and formats, and when properly targeted can be a great addition to well-run contextual advertising campaigns.

Hierarchy Reports

For users that want to get a more complete view of their entire SEM portfolio in a single report, we are now offering a series of “Hierarchy” reports that show users the entire breadcrumb, identifying the location where certain elements exist within their account structure. For example, let’s say you have the keyword bacon-flavored chocolate in both a Google and a Bing campaign. Previously, using the regular Keyword report, the keyword bacon-flavored chocolate would have shown as a single entry with data from both search engines aggregated together – and if you wanted to distinguish between performances you’d have to break the report down by Search Engine. With the new Keyword Hierarchy report, you can now see each individual instance of the keyword – along with the search engine account, campaign, and ad group in which it resides – all in a single line item, no breakdowns necessary.

Adobe Branding

Finally, as users log into the new version of SearchCenter+ they will see the new Adobe branding for all products. Now formally known as Adobe® SearchCenter+, powered by Omniture®, it’s still the same great product… and getting better every day!

Like what you see in the new version? Have ideas for future product enhancements? Would love to hear your feedback. Please leave comments below or tell us about your ideas at ideas.omniture.com.

• During this past year we completed the integration with Test&Target to offer users landing page optimization capabilities directly tied to their SearchCenter-managed campaigns.
• We began reporting on and allowing optimization around quality score.
• Significant and ongoing improvements have been made to platform speed and performance.
• Early this year we introduced full search query performance reporting for all search engines and built a keyword suggestion tool upon the insights that data provides.
• In collaboration with the Omniture Consulting team, we have massively enhanced our bid management functionality, now allowing for advanced bid triggers, plug-and-play bid automation templates, cross-engine bid strategies, and much more.
• Numerous improvements were made to the application’s UI to facilitate easier management of accounts and analysis of performance data.
• And now, through our most recent product release, we are excited to now offer users the ability to manage and measure all their Facebook ads.

In addition to the feature/functionality advancements SearchCenter has seen, we have also taken many other steps forward in building out our organization to provide for the needs of our users. Most notably, we recently released an official SearchCenter certification program. Powered by the continued growth of the SEM portion of our business, we also markedly increased our services and support team.

The improvements we’ve seen in SearchCenter have come about in a very direct way from feedback received from users, like those I’ve just spent a week with in Tokyo, as well as the hundreds of others in cities and countries worldwide that have openly and honestly shared with us their business challenges and needs with us. We view this feedback as the most critical factor in our current, and future, success.

As I commence my second year on the Omniture Product team, I am downright giddy about the future of SearchCenter. There are many more exciting features we can’t wait to get into the hands of our customers. There are numerous best practices, product tips, and hidden gems already existing in the application today that I want to ensure are highlighted so every Omniture user can receive the most value from their investment with our platform. And through this blog that is exactly what I hope to share with you in the days and months ahead.

I love search marketing! And I love what SearchCenter can do to empower online marketers.

Now that my plane has landed and I am making my way to through the terminal, I hear a public address announcement, and I’m smile. Though I’ve heard these words countless times before, they now hold a deeper meaning for me. Not only my luggage – but my job, my thoughts, this blog, and my life in general… are all “subject to search.”