Search Shenanigans

MSN today announced that it would begin testing its online marketing adCenter product in the UK in June with a full rollout expected later in the year.

The UK market has been waiting for this date for a year, ever since MSN announced at the launch of the service in the US at its 6th Annual Strategic Account Summit in March 2005.

The service is billed as the advertising engine for Windows Live, MSN and other Microsoft online services including Xbox.com and Xbox Live connected gaming. It has already been used in the US by DoubleClick’s performance based marketing division.

But what will it actually mean for the industry?

The UK market has been reliant on Google, Yahoo! and MIVA for its search marketing needs for the last few years and MSN was conspicuous by its absence. Today’s announcement may herald a new dawn for advertisers and search agencies in the UK, offering a genuine fourth alternative.

However, there are a number of questions that adCenter must answer before it is hailed as a success in the UK.

Firstly, Google has a massive head start over MSN in terms of users on its search service.

Secondly, Yahoo! can compete as portal for eyeballs in the UK, so there is no guarantee that the new adCenter will attract more business to the MSN portal. Add AOL to that point as well.

Thirdly, and although it is nauseating, Google constantly reminds everyone that they are in this game for the users, to give them the most relevant results, whereas the MSN play – if an initial glance of the offering is correct – seems to lean towards the advertiser, with the promise of being able to deliver ads to different demographics, rather than purely on keyword searches. So in theory the user does not get the most relevant results, just the most relevant ones for the advertiser.

Lastly – well for this list as it could go on for a while –will MSN offer a 15% agency discount when adCenter is introduced? A move that would be the opposite of that taken by both Yahoo! and Google, which removed the discounts in favour of other systems. Would seem suicide so will have to wait and see.

MSN will have to answer these questions and more if it is to wrestle control of the UK PPC market from Google and Yahoo! and MIVA, its going to be an interesting summer for search marketers.