MSN Takes on Google AdWords

kevmo writes "CNET News.com reports that Microsoft's MSN unit launched its own paid-search advertising program in France and said it plans to begin testing the system in the United States next month. FTA: "The system competes with Google's AdWords program and will eventually replace a keyword-based advertising program MSN contracts out to Yahoo. It has a simple user interface and is notable for its use of customer profiling, taking advantage of the data MSN gathers from its more than 9 million subscribers.""

Comments

MSN AdCenter

[NoInfo]

The actual URL to Microsoft's MSN AdCenter:

adcenter.msn.com

Re:MSN AdCenter

[ednopantz]

One should note that you need an invitation.

Re:I use AdWords on a few websites...

[ThaFooz]

I use AdWords on a few websites... What's in it for me to switch to MSN's?

Well, I'm unsure if you mean you advertise on a few websites or put ads on your your own websites for revenue. But, I've done a lot of work in the industry so here goes:

Google and Yahoo have a roughly equal share of the keyword-based advertising market (roughly 45% a piece), and most of the traffic comes from their own search engines, not their content network. The launch of MSN's program will imediatley cut into Yahoo's share (as current MSN ads are contracted to them), not Google's. It's hard to predict just how much though - Microsoft's search engine is less popular with a smaller index (and technicaly inferior IMHO), but Microsfot is pushing it pretty hard, and they own a fair number of hugely popular sites (MSNBC, Hotmail, ect). If you're targeting a specific demographic or website owned by MS, you'll have to consider them. But I don't see the major distributions out there flocking to an unproven system by a fairly new player to the search industry.

Between Google and Yahoo, I don't see overall differences in advertiser/advertisee ROI, but the two systems work slightly differently and could be quite different to a smaller operation. Where you place in Yahoo is based on how much you're willing to spend, where placement in Google is determined by a combination of the traffic you generate and your bid.

Bottom line, if you're only toying with AdWords at the moment, I wouldn't bother with MSN until you've experimented with Yahoo.

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