Microsoft Office Live's adManager Beta search advertising service will be adding Ask Sponsored Listings, allowing for advertisers to display ads on both MSN and Ask.com. Over at WebmasterWorld, martinibuster links to an InformationWeek article that has more:
The addition of Ask.com's sites to its paid search service will expose Microsoft's customer listings to an additional 5% of search traffic.That takes Microsoft's network a step closer to Yahoo, which in June captured 25.1% of all search traffic.
Numerous advertisers are looking forward to trying out the new MSN and Ask.com and think that it could even be a competitor to Google in the future if other search engines are included in their advertising structure:
Maybe if Microsoft heaps a few more 2nd tier search engines into AdCenter, and incentivise a lot more searches outside of the gaming industry, then they might be able to contend with Yahoo for a distant second to Google.
There are definitely increased marketing opportunities for advertisers and the reach should be greater with a larger user base. As Barry quotes James Speer of IAC at Search Engine Land, the Ask.com Sponsored Network reaches 59 million people. Good stuff.
For more information, check this page.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
