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Microsoft adCenter to Launch Contextual Program This Fall

Posted: August 2, 2006

Microsoft plans to launch their own contextual program this fall. It will be a US only invite pilot, however, one can request to be invited. What’s going to be interesting to see is how many features they plan on porting into contextual. For instance, they plan on supporting demographic targeting.

Competition is good, and while Yahoo Publisher’s network provides some competition to Google’s AdSense, Microsoft coming along will offer even more choices for publisher. This will force each of the engines to look at each other, see what publishers and advertisers desire, and then focus their attention in various directions.

As we all know, Microsoft isn’t one who’s afraid of competition - and today announced that their contextual program will launch this fall.

At first, the network will only consist of Microsoft owned sites. This is most likely to check on their own system capabilities. Because they are going to support demographic targeting (and possibly even more of their rich features), they need control to ensure that the program is working as it should. By owning both the website and the ad serving capabilities, this is the information they require.

The one feature they will launch with is a separate bid for contextual that is separate from serach. I think there has been enough written over the past couple years about why this is so necessary, so I’ll leave that rant for another time (especially since they’re going to support the feature).

The pilot will be US only at first. It will be by invite only. However, they are looking for feedback and advertisers interested in using the program. Therefore, if you want an invite, just give adCenter a call and have a conversation with them- they’re quite reasonable people.

A launch date for when any publisher will be able to sign up for the contextual program for monetizing their own site has yet to be stated. However, based upon their development time, and their launch time, I would expect it to be Q2 of next year.

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