• Live Search, Monday, June 30, 2008 1:30 PM

Microsoft rolled out Live Search cashback about a month ago, and has since partnered with eBay to offer searchers deals on products available via "Buy It Now." Now eBay ads that show up during a Live Search will feature a cashback icon, and will take users directly to the product page. Once users get to the shopping cart, info about how much cash they'll get back from their purchase shows up alongside payment details.

"The cashback gleam (icon) follows you throughout your eBay shopping experience," says Paul Dillon. "This is good continuity for the consumer and something we want to do more of, but it takes a bit of work on the advertiser side to enable this."

Dillon also explains that Microsoft is paying close attention to both the merchant-side cashback experience (via partner sites like eBay), as well as the cashback process accessed directly from Live Search. "We've had a lot of feedback that we should do a better job integrating our product research capabilities with our cashback experience," he says. "So we'll work hard to do that over the next few releases."

Read the whole story at Live Search »