Microsoft Adcenter has just released a beta version of a new plug in for excel 2007 to help you research new keywords in your ever expanding PPC and search marketing campaigns. Attendees of the webinar today got a taste of what this application is capable of.

MSN add-in offers some features that are just too valuable and way granular to pass up and I’m personally excited to make the switch over to Excel 2007 as soon as possible as MSN is still working on transposing the plug in across all excel product lifelines–which in my hyper-consumerist mindset can feel like eons.

Some of the bells and whistles for this plug in include:

-Confidence ranking - gives percentage of relevance between suggested keyword vs. website/relevant keywords

-Customized pivot tables for easy data sort of suggested keywords and confidence scores

-Automatically crawls website for all possible keywords

-Generate top keywords by verticals

- Demographic data delineated by months

- Historical data pulled from Adcenter, live search, MSN Passport users and 3rd party partnerships (all data is anonymous).

-Geo-targeting data from top states, countries and cities

In regards to first impressions this looks like a big step towards filling a void in what has been the bane of existence for all search marketers–obtaining accurate forecasting data to make appropriate keyword strategy decisions. Used in conjunction with other keyword tools you’ll just be a terror on the search marketing front.