Microsoft adCenter

History

Microsoft was late to enter the search market, both in terms of providing its own search database or a pay-per-click advertising tool. However, as the second largest search property after Google, it finally realised the need to offer its own PPC service, rather than rely on sponsored listings from its key competitor, Yahoo!. Following initial tests of the new MSN adCenter in France and Singapore, Microsoft is now running its PPC service in the US and UK markets.

Strengths

The format of Microsoft's PPC service is similar to Google AdWords, but it also provides an added level of campaign targeting and management. By using the data from MSN's numerous registered users who have signed up to Hotmail, Passport and Messenger services, Microsoft adCenter will use this data, when available, to provide demographic data to their PPC search market management and response data. Advertisers can place higher bids to boost their listings if searchers match their selected market profiles and although this data won't always be available, it could prove useful.

The other main advantage offered by the Microsoft adCenter is the ability for 'day parting', whereby you can stipulate at what time of day your adverts appear, or on which days of the week if these can affect the responsiveness of your campaign. This can potentially give the advertiser much more control over their spend and a greater ability to test the responsiveness of their advertising programme.

Weaknesses

Conpared to Google, Microsoft only has a small share of the search market, so activity here may may not be significant for niche advertisers. There are also a range of usabilty issues to be ironed out in the AdCenter interface.

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