Presumably timed to coincide with this year's MSN Strategic Account Summit, this May MSN's adCenter will roll out a major update to the public. AdCenter is MSN's easy to use online advertising platform. AdCenter helps advertisers to strategize, plan, and place their ads on the right search pages so that they get seen and clicked. Much in the same way that Google's AdWords works, your ad on adCenter appears when a user searches for a specific keyword, bid on by you, on an MSN Search page. AdCenter includes analysis tools so that you can fully optimize your ad campaigns.
Although, it may appear to be just like Google's product on the surface, there is actually much more to AdCenter. MSN's adCenter lets you control every aspect of your advertising. It allows an advertiser to control how much they pay for ads and when they pay it. You can also define target audiences by selecting specific geographic areas, times of day, age groups, and genders which the ads will be displayed to. A user's account is organized in a hierarchy, which includes Accounts, Campaigns, Orders, Ads, and Keywords. See the picture below for an illustrated view.
There will be a May update of adCenter and also the final service will be launching sometime in June. We expect adCenter to take center stage this week at the MSN SAS and myself and Chris will be providing live coverage from the event, so keep your eyes here for the latest.
Microsoft-Watch's take on adCenter and MSAS MSN adCenter