Microsoft released it’s adCenter Excel Plugin. Ok, so it’s not really a true Microsoft product, but at this point who cares? This is the kind of functionality that search marketers have been waiting for - the ability to tie the wealth of data available in the search platform with the analysis and modeling capabilities of Excel.

The Excel plugin ties in to the MS Keyword Services Platform. Originally developed by ad Sage, this plugin allows search marketers direct, integrated access to Microsoft’s Keyword Services Platform - which is the holy grail for all things related to MS’s keyword intelligence.

Our first thoughts - VERY impressive. The ad-hoc querying ability encourages exploration (not to mention that the big buttons are easy to understand). It’s pretty straightforward to drill down into deeper intel. Excel automatically puts differing dimensions of keyword research onto different tabs making it easy to organize your research.

The only downside we can see at this point is that this data is coming from the Internet’s #3 (or lower) ranked search engine. So this really only represents a fraction of the keyword intel that’s available.

Still - it’s a huge step in the right direction, and kudos to Microsoft for being the leader. Google and Yahoo have the capabilities to do this, perhaps they’ll follow suit?