Microsoft adds Adcenter to compete with Adsense

Microsoft is making it official today as they begin to roll out their advertising Pay Per Click model called Adcenter to compete with Google's Adsense program. It will not achieve Google's levels, breadth or depth immediately. Microsoft will initiate the program by running advertising on their own websites, instead of relying on Google or Yahoo for ads. Then as they grow the program and add more advertisers it is expected that they will offer the services to other publishers as Google does today.

Advertisers had been sought by Microsoft in early March to test the program in an early pilot. Through this Pilot, Microsoft even provided instructions for advertisers that were interested in importing data from Adsense or Yahoo's Search Marketing.

There has been little effort made so far by Microsoft to court publishers of content on a mass scale.

"The launch of adCenter in the United States is an important milestone for Microsoft, which says it is shifting from being a software company into a provider of online media through sites like MSN and Windows Live.
AdCenter works in a similar way to Google AdWords and Yahoo's advertising platform, where advertisers set the amount they want to pay each time someone clicks on their ad. Pledging a higher fee than other advertisers delivers a higher placement of the ad on the page. The ads are displayed on pages where users search for certain words that are chosen by the advertiser.
AdCenter uses a slightly more intelligent targeting system than the others, targeting ads based on user demographics in addition to the words they type into the search field, Elliott said. If it works better, advertisers will be drawn to it, he said. "

Microsoft Chases Online Ad Revenue With AdCenter - Microsoft Informer - Blog - CIO