The effect of Microsoft entering the PPC market, for publishers

From what I've read, it seems like MS is prepared to take a significant hit on their share of advertising revenue to gain market share. Yahoo may do the same once they are out of beta. This should be a serious concern to Google. Microsoft has billions of dollars in profits from their core business flowing in constantly. They can comfortably take a loss from AdCenter, while gobbling up market share all the while.

Theoretically, Microsoft could pay publishers 100% percent of revenue generated by clicks for the forseeable future. They could easily swallow the cost of running the program, in return for long term market share and webmaster loyalty.

What's the incentive to switch to Y or MS, unless they pay more? What will Google's likely response be, to keep publishers? "Smart payments", perhaps? I can see the tagline now "Get paid more for your valuable ad space, we appreciate your business".

Right now Google has the (significant) advantage of a superior ad matching algorithim. Their adsense and adwords user-interfaces also blow away Yahoo for the time being. Can MS or Yahoo eventually match these technological advantages? With enough money and talent, it's possible.

What does this mean for publishers? Good things, trust me A brutal and bloody knockdown competition over who can make publishers the most money. That's my theory, anyways.

 

Good point, Google has a huge lead in advertiser base. Their search engine will continue to draw new advertisers into the search and content networks.

However, it shouldn't be that hard for Microsoft to build a huge sales team to promote AdCenter. I was in advertising sales for a while. The hardest part, by far, is getting a callback from a potential customer. If you call and say "Hi, this is joe from Microsoft, please call me back at 555-1212", my bet is that you'll get a return call. Even if you're calling on Procter & Gamble. If they've never heard of your company's brand name, 98% chance of no call back.

If MS and Yahoo execute well, they can pull in the largest advertisers in a relatively short time period. Supply and Demand also comes into play. If equivalent keywords are maxxing out at $5 on Google content network, and $.10 on MSN, arbitrage will take care of that =)

 

I think thats why you get yahoo reps calling YPN sign ups right? They realize they have to massage the relationship to get people to keep using it.

MSN andYahoo's real problem is simple. They aren't search engines. They are portals. I don't go to yahoo to search for stuff, I go there to check mail, or play a game or read the news. I go to MSN..well, I never go to MSN to be honest. When you go to google; all you can do is search for something. No frills, no distractions on the page. The focus of the page is apparent. Not so much with yahoo nor MSN

 

MSN SEARCH > GOOGLE SEARCH

google results are FULL of spam.

 

I definitely agree with that. Google is light years ahead of anyone else in search algos, advertising systems, and ad relevancy matching. I am one of those people who despises using Yahoo search marketing. I filled out a YSM customer survey recently, in which I tore them a virtual new one regarding their user interface. It's incredibly clunky and awkward compared to Adwords, in my opinion. My marketing does seem to provide a higher ROI with Adwords, though it's not a huge sample size.

The main point is that if/when MS or Yahoo do eventually offer an effective, competetive content advertising product, it will be good for publishers. More of them fighting for our business = good.

 

I personally feel that MS might not enter into ad market or if they are planning, then they might start something with Yahoo...

I feel this because, recently MSN and Yahoo have decided to come up with single messenger tool which can be used for both yahoo and MSN..

So this can be first step towards "make both happy" relationship..so I doubt MS would like to break it by launching another publisher network in competition with Yahoo....

But that's my personal thought..the outcome might be different..

Regards,
Deep

 

What if they also join to distribute ads providing more exposure for advertisers ?
I read somewhere that MSN gets ads from some other SE as well .
Is that right ?

Forum users will also enjoy promoting this program in sign for incentives . I see some chitica ads already .

Regards
jeet
P.S . you do see ads in your yahoo mail also . Be it a portal and not a SE.
You go there more often you go to google .

 

People said the same thing about Microsoft when they came out with the XBox. They sold the boxes below cost and took a big loss on them. It was said (by me also) that nobody would buy an XBox when you've got PS2 with all the market share. Lookie what happened in a matter of 2 years. I put my Playstation2 in the closet and have 2 Xboxes now.

I'll put my money on M$, that if they get into the PPC market they'll have close to the same market share as Google in a couple years.

 

Microsoft has a cash pile believed to be worth about $50 billion dollars. Shareholders have always wanted the company to give some of the cash back, and Microsoft did finally start paying a dividend in recent years.

But here it sounds like the company could use some of that to bankroll a campaign to get users to switch search engines; once its advertising network gets under way, some of its profits could take over funding incentives.
Microsoft will keep building its search and prepping its advertising network for debut in the US and elsewhere.Until then, Gates would like everyone to pay attention to Google.
Once competition does really begin it will be a good fight.

 

I think the fight will benifit to us

 

yes, very true. As search becomes competitive and people realize that other offerings are as good, or are even significantly better, there will be price competition.

We can expect to get some free content or a check, or some incentive to use a different search engines.

 

How do you think they will "TRACK" who's using which search engine ?
Some login may be ? ( takes time to login ..)

Well then why are they fighting for the shortest time while searching ?
( Search took 0.8 seconds...)

Regards
jeet

 

All Microsoft needs to be able to do is convince the right people (people that forward others and help out online) that Microsoft's program is better, than it works like a virus from than on. Why do you think Google's is so big and growing? I don't see much advertising from them except for the ads other's are showing (on the adsense ads) and people telling others it's better. And you don't actualy need many to do that.

If I was Microsoft I'd target people who don't know much about online advertising first and get them started with it. Besides, even though Google is so big, don't many of their advertisers advertise in more places? There's no harm in it and if Microsoft pays more to publish therefore possibly having more advertisers or the potential for it, there's at least an reason to try it out. Nobody ever said anything about advertisers having to switch completely.

 

That is for certain, but very possible, and with the money they have I'm sure they also have all the help they need to do it. It's just a matter of how much time and money they want to invest into it.

 

With a huge list of advertisers or with only a few but if they can get "Webmasters" displaying their ads then google is left with and ad space of 4-7 ads only , that's on SERP's .
I don't see any other way of capturing "share".
Eventually the advertiser list will also increase because of ad display on many websites .

No matter what "Publishers" are going to be benefitted specially if their is some "referrer" incentive as well .

Regards
jeet

 

If i get paid to use search engine, i would'nt have care about how much time it takes for search results to show and microsoft have very nice passport authentication system already in place.
I think this is the only way microsoft can take over from google by giving the cash back to its users.And they have already started some experiments on this feature.This fight is really going to be very exciting in the future.