MSN Launches Paid Search

  • September 27, 2005
MSN Monday launched its paid search product, adCenter, in France. The product, in beta testing since March, had pilot programs in France and Singapore, and was quietly launched in Singapore on Aug. 31. With adCenter, MSN hopes to compete with already established rivals in the space--Google's AdWords and Yahoo! Search Marketing. Included in the final release are several tools aimed at helping search marketers with demographic targeting. One function allows advertisers to select an audience by age, gender, geography, and time of day, and then suggests a specific set of keywords to appeal specifically to that demographic. Another profiles an advertiser's keywords and projects the users who are most likely to search for them. In October, MSN plans to launch a U.S. pilot, starting with 350 advertisers. Over the course of the pilot, MSN will add 300 more advertisers, for a total of 650.

--Shankar Gupta

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