On one of the Microsoft adCenter blogs they have noted that the bug had elevated the cost of some click, and that affected advertisers would have their accounts credited for the overcharges. Some users reported that keywords that some keywords that barely hit the radar were charged $20-$30 while others reported a cost basis that had increased over 800%. Several users took the step of pausing their campaigns to prevent the additional overcharges. While this may have saved them temporally it is a loss of time that they will not recover in their campaigns. The timing of this issue could not come at a worse time. Occurring on a Thursday the highest average internet traffic day of the week and at the end of a month may cause some retailers to miss their numbers. On a positive note Microsoft was able to isolate the issue, and solved it in a short period of time. Most users reported having their accounts credited over the weekend, and many who had paused have restarted.

Several Advertisers indicate that refunds have been received by them. The amount that they received was for the difference between the Max bid, and the amount that they were actually charge. I compliment Microsoft for resolving this issue quickly, but wonder if they should have instead looked at the average bid price prior to the trouble verses the max bid price. This difference can be significant amounts for some especially for those who are bidding on large number of words or had a wider spread between the current bids and their maximum.

Microsoft also took the step of phoning some of the effected clients to inform them of the trouble, and resolution. It is of course too bad that this type of a situation had to occur in the first place, yet it allowed Microsoft to show off great customer service to picks up the pieces, and make the most of providing a quick resolution.

The Microsoft adCenter program was launched by Microsoft last year, and still trails well behind Yahoo inc, and Google inc. Obviously problems like this may cause some potential Microsoft advertisers to take a step back, but this might need to be put into context. Microsoft is taking steps to fix the issue and these growing pains have been experienced by other, similar programs in the past. If you want to explore this issue further, check out this SEO Roundtable post and the forum threads at the WebmasterWorld , DigitalPoint , and Threadwatch forums.

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