Anything Yahoo can do, Microsoft already did. In Microsoft’s opinion, they are doing it a lot better than Yahoo and think the portal will just keep on playing catchup when Panama arrives to take on adCenter.
So Yahoo will launch its new contextual advertising system on Monday, the day when Super Bowl bettors wake up and realize they owe Carl the Gaff Hook a lot of cash for wagering the wrong way on the over/under for blimp shots of the game. In Microsoft’s opinion, Yahoo would fare better negotiating a payment plan with Carl than trying to take it on in paid search features.
A Marketing Sherpa report on what works in online marketing has paid search at the top of its list, just as it did in 2005. Google has dominated the category, leaving Yahoo and Microsoft among others to fight it out for the rest of the market.
Microsoft has made its play by focusing on a key point of difference between itself and Yahoo. With adCenter, advertisers can target audiences geographically, demographically, or by time of week or day.
By providing audience information through the building process, Microsoft believes adCenter does a better job of shaping the ad campaign from the ground up. Microsoft claimed independent analyses of its demographic targeting found it superior to the competition.
That has led to better conversion rates, as they touted higher ones observed coming from the 100 percent adCenter-powered MSN and Windows Live properties.
“Yahoo is catching up with the rest of the industry, by only now adopting quality-based ranking,” said David Jakubowski, general manager of adCenter. “At the end of the day, Microsoft adCenter is continuing to push the industry beyond what is currently considered the gold standard, establishing a new way forward to respond to the needs of our advertisers.”
Gauntlet’s tossed, Yahoo. We’ll see you Monday when you pick it up.
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David Utter is a staff writer for murdok covering technology and business.
