MSN PPC Advertising Network Finally Debuts

Microsoft recently announced that it is launching its new MSN PPC advertising engine in Singapore and France by mid-late 2005. Good marketers are probably already planning how they may justify advertising their products or services in Singapore to induce a style of the new service. The service's introduction into Canada, the UK, and also the US might very well come back before the tip of 2005.

The new MSN advertising program has been long awaited. MSN is Microsoft's leading web site property, and maybe the web's most visited "portal" (web site with both search and content such as news) once Yahoo! MSN's search engine accounts for one in five net searches, putting it in third place behind Google and Yahoo!

Search engine advertising mostly a 2-player game 

Currently, MSN shows advertising that comes from Overture, the web's largest on-line advertising network in terms of revenue. Overture was bought by Yahoo! a number of years ago. Since Yahoo! is that the direct competitor of MSN in every means, lots of folks have been wondering why MSN did not take its advertising program in-house long ago. It seems particularly strange considering that even Lycos, whose search engine now accounts for a small fraction of total net searches, has its own advertising network.

In many minds, the very fact that Microsoft would go to Overture solely demonstrated how excellent an on-line advertising program Overture was, and just how hard it very is to line one up. Before going to Overture, MSN was getting advertising from LookSmart, an advertising network that doesn't own any websites that compete with Microsoft properties in any big way. Even before it had lost its largest advertising outlet, LookSmart was widely seen as a subpar second-tier engine, during a category with FindWhat or even Kanoodle. The very fact that LookSmart had seemingly squandered a probability to make inroads into an online advertising market dominated by 2 huge players cast a lot of doubt on whether or not there would ever be a significant challenger to Google Adwords and Overture.

What Microsoft's new advertising network suggests that for the long run 

Will the new MSN advertising network succeed where therefore several have failed? Or will it become a bloated, relatively uncompetitive product only supported by Microsoft's vast bulk? (Not that Bill Gates has ever fathered such a bastard child.)

There's a very smart reason to believe that the new advertising program bears the seeds of its own destruction, thanks to a usually Microsoftian act of overreaching and obliviousness to public opinion. That unhealthy seed is the identical unhealthy seed that has spoiled the fruits of therefore many net selling labors: behavioral and demographic targeting, that continuously seems to disagree with some individuals's stomachs, irrespective of how delicately it's arranged in the bowl. (Editor's note: too extended a metaphor? Well, web site copywriters have egos, too, you recognize, just like the rest of the web dev. community. A minimum of you didn't have to sit through 5 minutes of flash animation to scan this.)

Next: MSN PPC Advertising to Incorporate Demographic & Behavioral Targeting: Killer App. or Achilles Heel?

Microsoft's press unleash saying the new MSN advertising program is also worth reading if you're that into this.

ArticleSource: ArticlesAlley.com