Microsoft Opening Content Ads Beta to U.S.
Submitted by mobilebadboy on Tue, 08/21/2007 - 19:41.
Microsoft has announced that on the 29th they will be upgrading adCenter to allow for Content Ads, allowing your ads to be served on content network pages (same as what you can currently do with AdWords) -- "...starting with day one, MSN® Tech & Gadgets, Money, Real Estate, and Windows Marketplace. Over time, we will introduce the rest of MSN, other Microsoft-owned properties, and premium partner sites."
This upgrade will be an automatic opt-in for advertisers -- your campaigns will start showing on the content network upon upgrade. See their post regarding upgrading but not being automatically opted-in.
http://adcenterblog.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!85E824269AB8C30D!509.entry
(phpBB is not liking the exclamation marks in the url, that's why it's not hotlinked)
I've been running content ads for a while on MSN and haven't been very impressed with the results. I tried it in the "diet" vertical and got a lot of clicks, but not many conversions. This same campaign on MSN search performs at triple digit ROI...
I hope they keep the ads running on Microsoft sites until they fine tune their click fraud monitoring.
I filled out the form to opt out for now since I haven't been able to make content networks work thus far. Is Microsoft planning an adsense-type program? I might feel more comfortable seeing my ads on Microsoft-only sites than on an adsense-type network.
Good question. They are rumored to be testing an AdSense-type program. Who knows how long it may take them to roll it out. Microsoft seems to move a lot slower than Google when it comes to product releases...