Sean Donahue

Early Analysis of Microsoft’s Live Search CashBack Program: Money Talks?

July 22nd, 2008

Michael Arrington of TechCruch recently posted an interesting analysis of Microsoft’s new Live Search CashBack campaign.

The program allows advertisers to offer users a rebate on online purchases made after searching on Microsoft’s Live Search. It moves advertising spending from a cost-per-click to a cost-per-action basis. It’s also an attempt by Microsoft to attract some of the shopping search volume away from industry leader Google.

Arrington looked at ComScore data from the first complete month of the program’s existence. He found that Microsoft achieved a 15% gain in search volume. Of course, moving from an 8.5% share of search volume to a 9.2% share means Microsoft is still a distant third in the search volume race to Google’s 61.5% share. But the blip is worth watching for further impact.

It’s way too soon to declare the strategy a success — a few more months of data will tell us a lot more. But for marketers using search ads to drive consumer purchases, this program could be worth a test.

Read Arrington’s analysis here:

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/07/18/microsoft-searches-jump-15-after-live-cashback-launch/

Categories: Online Advertising, Search Marketing Tags:



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