Archive for the ‘Search Advertisers’ Category

Search Advertising Competitive Offer from Microsoft adCenter

July 2, 2009

I received the following email offer from Microsoft adCenter promoting search advertising with Microsoft.

From: Microsoft adCenter [media@microsoftadvertising.com]
Sent: Wednesday, July 01, 2009 6:58 PM
To: Search Advertiser
Subject: Don’t miss out on free clicks when you let us upload your next search campaign

To ensure that you continue to receive Microsoft adCenter communications, please add our domain (@microsoftadvertising.com) to your safe senders list.

Dear Search Advertiser,

Time is running out on our birthday celebration offer. Our gift to you: We’ll upload one of your campaigns from another search advertising program to Microsoft adCenter—for free!—and you’ll receive a coupon worth $15 in free clicks. 1

How does your free upload work?

Signing up couldn’t be simpler. You’re just a click away. Our birthday offer ends July 6, 2009, so please act fast!

1.  Sign up on our adCenter Anniversary web form.
2.  You’ll receive an e-mail message containing details about how to send us your exported competitive search engine campaign.
3.  One of our Search Specialists will upload your campaign to your adCenter account.
4.  You’ll receive a confirmation that your campaign upload is complete.
5.  Simply activate your campaign, and then use your promotion code to receive $15 in free clicks.

Extend your reach with adCenter
Your adCenter campaign upload can help you expand your search advertising reach with:

*   Higher-quality clicks: adCenter can offer you a more targeted audience, which can mean more clicks from the customers you want.
*   Better conversions: Consumers who click adCenter ads can be three times more likely to engage than those who click Google ads. 2

If you have any questions, contact us at (800) 518-5689, Monday through Saturday, from 6:00 A.M. to 6:00 P.M. Pacific Time. Please keep this e-mail for your records to refer to offer details. We look forward to working with you to upload your next adCenter campaign!

Sincerely,

The Microsoft adCenter Team

1 Offer details: Offer valid only for new campaigns submitted by July 6, 2009, that go live by July 15, 2009 (midnight Pacific Time). Participation in this program is limited and this offer is being extended at the sole discretion of adCenter to existing customers of adCenter who are original recipients of this e-mail from Microsoft. Any portion of ad credit not used within 90 days from the date the credit was applied to your adCenter account will expire. Ads must be stopped after ad credit is used up or within 90 days from the time ad credit was applied to your adCenter account, whichever comes first, or your credit card/invoice will be charged for advertising clicks. Offer valid for residents of the 50 United States and Washington, D.C., only. Limit: one ad credit and one free campaign upload per adCenter customer. Offer may not be combined with any other offers or discounts, separated, redeemed for cash, transferred, sold, or bartered. There is a minimum bid requirement of $0.05 per click-through when using adCenter. Search or Contextual Advertising listings are subject to editorial review. See Microsoft Advertiser Terms and Conditions for more details. Other terms and conditions may apply. This offer may be terminated by adCenter at any time and without notice.

Upload requirements: A new campaign is defined as a campaign containing broadly different keywords and ads when compared to others that are live on adCenter. A new campaign must have a minimum of 150 keywords. Campaign names must not exceed 100 characters and ad group names must not exceed 60 characters in adCenter. If adCenter receives files exceeding character limits, it may be renamed to reduce length by removing any additional characters, except where this would duplicate another campaign or ad group name. Subject to all necessary data being accurately submitted by you and your compliance with Microsoft adCenter Terms and Conditions, and the Offer Details above, your unique promotional code will be sent via e-mail to you by Microsoft which will enable you to redeem your ad credit.

2 Conversion is defined as a web visitor entering into a secure session on a website. comScore Quality of Click Custom Study (MSN – Windows Live Search), March – May 2008.

Microsoft Corporation
One Microsoft Way
Redmond, WA 98052

Interesting strategy.

Why doesn’t Microsoft promote this on the Bing home page?

Advertisement

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Posted in Bing, Competitive Offer, Microsoft adCenter, Search Advertisers, Search Advertising | Leave a Comment »

Search Advertising Small Business Market Penetration

May 3, 2009

Australian small businesses are in line for some stimulus money from search companies Google and Yahoo.

According to the Australian, “Yahoo Search Marketing is offering businesses $150 in search inventory, while Google is giving away up to $75 per new customer.”

Why?

Its estimated ” just 2 per cent of the 1.9 million small businesses in Australia use paid search advertising. A key reason is that many businesses still do not have a website.”

Search advertising small business penetration in the United States is surely higher isn’t it?

Number of Small Businesses in the United States

Number of Small Businesses in the United States

What percentage of small businesses in the United States buy search advertising?

What percentage of small businesses in the United States have a website?

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Posted in Google, Search Advertisers | 1 Comment »

Small Business Search Engine Marketing Too Costly, Time Consuming and Complex?

December 21, 2008

Microsoft adCenter conducted a survey of 400 small businesses with 250 employees or less to gauge small business sentiment toward search marketing and advertising.

Among the participants’ chief concerns, most cited the common misconceptions of cost, time and complexity as major hurdles to conducting search marketing campaigns for their businesses.

Key small business concerns regarding search engine marketing from the Microsoft adCenter study:

  • Nearly nine in 10 (89 percent) feared keywords may become too expensive.
  • 81% questioned if paid search marketing is the best use of their marketing budgets.
  • 25% of respondents believe paid search marketing is too complex.
  • 21% thought it would be too time-consuming.
  • 35% felt they would need an agency to help set up a search marketing campaign.

The most surprising finding from Microsoft’s adCenter Study? 7 in 10 small-business owners who participated revealed that they would rather try to do their own taxes than start a paid search marketing campaign!

The Microsoft study also revealed that 59 percent of small businesses with Web sites don’t currently use paid search marketing, and of those, 90 percent have never even attempted it.

Will search engine advertising providers like Microsoft ever overcome the general small business perception that search engine advertising is too costly, time consuming and complex?

Not until the small business advertiser has been convinced and shown otherwise that search engine marketing is inexpensive, quick and easy.

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Posted in Search Advertisers, Search Advertising, Search Engine Marketing, Small Business Search Engine Marketing | Leave a Comment »

Interview with Dr. Qi Lu; President, Microsoft Online Services Group

December 11, 2008

Microsoft’s PressPass recently interviewed Dr. Qi Lu, the new President of Microsoft’s Online Service Group about his plans for taking Microsoft’s search products to the next level.

Microsoft Dr. Qi Lu

Microsoft Dr. Qi Lu

Source – Microsoft PressPass

Prior to joining Microsoft, Dr. Lu was executive vice president of Engineering for the Search and Advertising Technology Group at Yahoo. Prior to his 10 years at Yahoo, Lu was a Research Staff Member at IBM’s Almaden Research Center. He also has worked at Carnegie Mellon University as a Research Associate and at Fudan University in China as a faculty member. Lu holds 20 U.S. patents, and received his Bachelor of Science and Master of Science in computer science from Fudan University in Shanghai, and his Ph.D. in computer science from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pa.

Excerpts from Microsoft’s PressPass interview with Dr. Lu:

PressPass: Where do you see the opportunities for Microsoft in the search and online space?

Lu: First, I think there is a genuine opportunity to take our search products to the next level. I see that Microsoft’s search product quality is improving at a very, very fast rate, that there are great foundations there. And with the technology base, the talent base, the computing infrastructures, I’m confident that we will be in a position to produce a differentiated and compelling search experience.

The second opportunity is to continue building a very powerful advertising platform. Microsoft has made a series of strategic acquisitions, and also built a bunch of internal technologies and products. The key is to put all those assets together to build powerful, highly scalable advertising platforms. The advertising we see today will be very different in the future because of new platforms for it. Ads will be truly relevant and useful, and the experience will be compelling.

PressPass: Whenever anyone talks about competition in search, the target always is Google. Are they catchable?

Lu: Well, we’re here to win, and my view on this is that to win in the search space, fundamentally you build on the strengths of your product. And we know what it takes to build a compelling user experience and winning product, which is to have a powerful infrastructure, great talent and put great processes in place so that we can out-develop, out-market, out-innovate our competitors.

But make no mistake; I think Google is a very, very powerful company. They are definitely ahead in the search space. There are a lot of challenges ahead. We’ve got our work cut out for us.

It will be interesting to see in which direction Microsoft heads with ex-Yahoo Dr. Lu at the Microsoft search helm.

Will Microsoft resume talks to acquire Yahoo’s search business?

Will Microsoft continue developing their own search product?

Or – will Microsoft now attempt to accomplish both (buy Yahoo’s search business and migrate Yahoo search advertisers to adCenter while attempting to improve Microsoft’s search and advertising products) in their quest to catch Google?

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Posted in Microsoft, Microsoft adCenter, Search, Search Advertisers, Yahoo, Yahoo Search Marketing | Leave a Comment »

Search: Not For Layman, Laggards or Luddites

November 8, 2008

Today’s Saturday Interview in the New Yorks Times was with Google CEO Eric Schmidt.

One of Schmidt’s answers was simple yet profound:

“We have a product that is more measurable, more targetable, and we are the innovator in the space. At some point, people need to sell products, and at some point they realize that the best advertising is measurable advertising, and they conclude that we do that.”

Businesses who haven’t yet concluded measurable advertising is better than unmeasured advertising fall into three categories.

They are:

1. Layman

2. Laggards

3. Luddites

In a future post, I will describe my experiences explaining search advertising to each type.

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Posted in Eric Schmidt, Google, Laggards, Layman, Luddites, Search, Search Advertisers | Leave a Comment »

2008 Holiday Retail Search Traffic Forecast

November 7, 2008

Microsoft’s adCenter blog has posted their 2008 Holiday Advertising Guide for search advertisers.

Some of the guide’s highlights:

“Online retail shopping increases in November by more than 100 percent.1 Adding promotions like free shipping make an enormous difference—57 percent of consumers stated that free shipping is a reason for them to shop online.2 For search and display advertising, online buying will peak on Black Friday, November 28, followed by Cyber Monday, December 1.”

1. Hitwise Market Share in all Categories, 2008.
2. iCongo/Harris Interactive, April 22, 2008.

Based on the percentage of consumer interest and barring any data suggesting otherwise, shipping costs appear to have become the largest remaining barrier to consumers shopping and buying online.

Can elimination of shipping costs insure and increase internet retailers sales prospects this 2008 holiday season?

As the largest online retailer, Amazon.com demonstrated their understanding of the power of free shipping by offering it during the 2007 holiday season.

Amazon is again offering free shipping this holiday shopping season with some conditions through their Amazon Prime Member program.

Amazon Prime

Amazon Prime

In this current economic climate, aren’t internet retailers who don’t follow Amazon’s lead by offering some type of free shipping risking transaction losses to internet retailers – like Amazon – who do?

According to Microsoft’s Holiday Advertising Guide and their traffic data from 2007, Internet retailers can expect four peak search traffic periods during this holiday season:

1. Black Friday

2. Cyber Monday

3. Holiday Crunch

4. Post Holiday

Holiday Search Traffic

Holiday Search Traffic

Important search traffic dates for internet retailers this year will be:

1. Black Friday: November 28, 2008

2. Cyber Monday: December 1, 2008

3. Holiday Crunch: Occurs between December 4, 2008 and December 18, 2008

4. Post Holiday: Begins on December 26, 2008

Internet retailers who advertise free shipping this holiday season can forecast a larger percentage of transactions generated via search from within their market than internet retailers who don’t.

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Posted in Advertise, Amazon Prime, Amazon.com, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Free Shipping, Holiday Advertising Guide, Holiday Crunch, Holiday Shopping, Internet Retailers, Microsoft adCenter, Post Holiday, Search Advertisers, Search Advertising, Search Engine Advertising, Shopping | 1 Comment »