• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, September 8, 2014

“The reinvented MSN design provides advertisers … unprecedented consumer access,” Frank Holland, corporate vice president at Microsoft Advertising, told Media Daily News on Monday.

With the relaunch, Microsoft is promising a simpler buying experience for advertisers across platforms, including personal computers, mobile browsers and native mobile apps.

“The new MSN keeps ad buying simple … through immersive ad offerings across screens,” Holland said.

Over the next several months, MSN plans to release a suite of new applications across Windows Phone, iOS, and Android. The broader initiative will result in a number of new opportunities for brands, according to Holland.

“Just like the MSN Web experience, once a customer’s preferences are set, they are consistent across devices and platforms,” Holland explained on a blog post published on Monday. “For advertisers looking to tell their story throughout a person’s day, Microsoft’s unified presence across screens enables brands to share the consumer’s journey.”

The new portal features 11 sections, including sports, news, health and fitness, money, travel and video, while users’ new home screens are integrated with Skype, Outlook.com, Facebook, Twitter, OneNote and OneDrive.

With the relaunch, MSN is also adding personal productivity tools, such as shopping lists, flight status, and savings calculators, which can all be synchronized across devices. For some consumers, the notion of Web portal as digital gatekeeper harkens back to the days before mega social networks and mobile apps.

In terms of unique visitors, however, the numbers tell a different story. Stateside, Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft properties each bested Facebook (and every other Web property) in February, according to comScore.

Microsoft sites drew nearly 163 million unique visitors that month, which topped the roughly 133 million unique visitors that flocked to Facebook. (Worldwide, MSN.com boasts an audience of more than 425 million consumers across 50 countries, according to Microsoft.)

Yet, the relaunch comes at a time when Microsoft’s display advertising business needs a stiff shot in the arm. For the quarter ended June 30, “display [advertising] revenue [remained] soft,” Amy Hood, Microsoft’s EVP and CFO, told analysts on the company’s earnings call, in July.

During the quarter, Bing search advertising revenue grew 40%, while the unit’s domestic share of share of search grew to 19.2%. Overall, devices and consumer revenue grew 42% to $10 billion, during the quarter.