Microsoft is now selling Ask.com Sponsored Listings via its Microsoft adManager search marketing service. In addition to the MSN adCenter sponsored search ads sold via Microsoft, its customers can now use the service to purchase and manage search campaigns throughout Ask.com.
adManager helps you advertise your business to the right people—those already searching for what you sell. Put your business in front of search users on the Ask Sponsored Listings network, and MSN and Live Search, two of the most popular destinations on the Web.
Combined, (according to a recent study by comScore qSearch) Microsoft Live Search, MSN Search and the Ask.com network combine for an 18.2% share of the search engine market.
Microsoft’s search properties have been growing in usage, and Ask.com holds a steady 5% market share. I see Microsoft’s Office Live adManager as being a powerful force for the growth of Ask.com (which is also a Google AdWords partner) amongst the business community in a huge salesforce which Ask.com may not be able to create on its own.
Smart partnership as Microsoft is sure to get a nice cut from Ask.com on all of their new advertisers via the adManager program. It will be interesting to see;
- If Ask.com & Microsoft continue to grow their partnership by Ask.com choosing MSN adCenter to fill its unsold Sponsored Listings spots instead of Google AdWords
- If Yahoo & Google would work with their competition in Microsoft to expand their reach via partnering with the adManager program; especially Yahoo!
