June 18, 2008 | Wednesday

Microsoft Live Search Changes Gears

By Richard Gregory - COO in PPC |Search Engines |Microsoft

In previous months I would have been the first to point out the futility of Microsoft’s attempts to get a material share of the Search Advertising business. Danny Sullivan’s recent posting on Google’s growing dominance in the US market shows the scale of the challenge, and it’s a much bleaker situation in Europe.

Nevertheless, I came away from Friday’s Microsoft Adchamps event with a surprising feeling of confidence around their ability to make inroads into this market. On the day, they unveiled a raft of new tools to aid the serious search marketer and addressed some major concerns we’d all had about editorial approval, speed of the UI and policing of poor ads.

There’s also been a flurry of product launches, partnerships and acquisitions that signal a complete change in place. Recent announcements include:
• The launch of Live Cashback in the US as a further move towards CPA based advertising plus a threat to comparison sites.
• The deal with HP to be the default search provider on new PCs which out-strips Google’s Dell deal from last year.
• The move into TV advertising provision through the acquisition of Navic.
• The opening of the European Search Technology Centre (STC) which hopefully means that UK advertisers might get exposed to more product trials.

It all seems to be going well…but just to bring it all down to earth let’s remember that we’re still talking about a player with sub-5% market share in the UK. Fortunately for Microsoft their good client service has probably ensured they are getting more than 5% of advertisers’ time but there still needs to be a large shift in their market share before they can be seen as a material player in search….ideas on a postcard please.