Down at Microsoft they are pretty confident that the AdCenter will be a great success in the constantly growing online marketplace - currently dominated by Google - and that their offering will lead the way when it comes to getting the best possible return for its users.
Sharon Baylay of the Microsoft Online Services Group had this to say:
"We expect Microsoft AdCenter to shake up the UK search advertising market - people now have a third option from a major online power. We're giving customers improved audience intelligence, increased conversion rates, and great customer service."
By "improved audience intelligence", Microsoft refer to the advanced level of demographic targeting they can now provide. For example, it is possible to target users by their Age, Gender, Lifestyle Category and even Wealth/Income.
How can they provide insight at this level you may ask? Spy planes? Psychics? The answer: with over ten million people registered to MSN Instant Messenger, not to mention nearly nine million Hotmail users Microsoft can gather a lot of information about the people using their existing services.
This information is hugely valuable to the clued-up search marketer. For example, knowing a searcher's gender before buying a keyword allows for fine-tuning ad and landing-page creatives. It may also help determine the suitability of certain keyword types for campaigns in general, based on media and marketing objectives.
So how good is it?
Bigmouthmedia has been involved in the trial project that was launched in France earlier in the year, and have been running live MSN campaigns in the USA for a number of months. Early indications have shown that the campaigns have performed particularly strongly in the English-speaking USA market. We fully expect this pattern to hold true in the UK.
With innovative moves such as this, Microsoft has given itself every chance of gaining a firm foothold on the ladder to success, although I doubt it will be long before Google and Yahoo! are offering such a high level of targeting. In fact, in the US Google already gives advertisers the ability to target demographics through AdWords, although not to the same degree as Microsoft.
It's good to see that, as is often the case, fierce competition has led to someone pushing the envelope that bit further - and that we can all benefit from that.
