Microsoft Plans Launch of Search Ad System by June

[eWESTPost]

Microsoft Corp. plans to launch its system for selling advertising alongside regular search results by June in the United States, giving the company its next piece of ammunition in the battle with rivals including Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc. [More... (http://www.forbes.com/business/feeds/ap/2006/01/13/ap2447727.html)]

[liquidboy]

5 months away... nice (not)! ill believe it when i see it!

[ferret77]

5 months away... nice (not)! ill believe it when i see it!

Its microsoft, do you think they will have a problem with building a ppc software?

[GuyFromChicago]

5 more moths of limited competition. Time to ramp up those campaigns if you're in the pilot!

[bzzubzzu]

I was under the assumption that MSN has their PPC system in beta already (for advertisiers not publishers yet). An MSN rep contacted me and offered me $100 in free credits to join the beta. I just haven't gotten around to it, mainly because my AdWords and Yahoo/Overture PPC have done so poorly for the money invested...

[GuyFromChicago]

I was under the assumption that MSN has their PPC system in beta already (for advertisiers not publishers yet).

It is. I put together a little AdCenter FAQ (http://www.ppcdiscussions.com/2006/01/msn-adcenter.html) earlier this week that answers some of the common questions that I've seen people ask about AdCenter.

If you can get in the pilot do it. There's hardly any competition right now and CTR and conversions have been great for everyone I've talked to.

[hulkster]

OK - I'm confused. I know the MSN equivelent of Adwords has been available for some time ... so are these folks paying JUST to be seen on the side of the search results - or is there a stealth Beta program for the MSN equivilent of Adsense?

[GuyFromChicago]

so are these folks paying JUST to be seen on the side of the search results

Yes.

From here (http://www.ppcdiscussions.com/2006/01/msn-adcenter.html):
Q: What kind of distribution will my AdCenter ads get? Where are they being displayed?
A: During the pilot AdCenter ads are being displayed "on up to 25 percent of MSN Search traffic (http://blogs.msdn.com/msnsearch/archive/2005/10/07/478353.aspx)." The other 75% of the time ads will be served through MSN's partnership with Yahoo.

If there is a "content network" type test going I haven't seen anything on it. All the impressions/clicks I've received through AdCenter have been from MSN search results. Tha said though, I don't think we're that far off from seeing a Adsense competitor from Microsoft. They have indicated they will be serving their own AdCenter ads 100% of the time on MS search results by the end of June 2006.

The question is do they start beta testing an Adsense like product before they get to that point, or, does the Adsense like product start testing after they are serving 100% of their own ads on the MS search results.

Time will tell:D

[ronmojohny]

I hope they don't change their algorithm, I rank good with them now.

-RonMo

[seoaddict]

hi Guys,
I dont understand why search engines yahoo and msn launches first their porgram in USA Only.

:mad:

[mdvaldosta]

I'm glad to see more competition.