Mike Davis
Microsoft Live Search gives cashback
One might have thought that an Internet search provider offering cashback for using its services was in a desperate bid to regain market share. Well it might be, but given that this is Microsoft, and the company has been making some significant investments and announcements around search over the last year, this looks much more strategic than a quick giveaway.Announcing the initiative on Wednesday at the Advance 08 advertising conference, Microsoft's Chairman Bill Gates stated that the programme already had the participation of 700 merchants, representing about 10 million products, and that the cashback would vary between 2% and 30%.The technology for the programme came from the acquisition of Jellyfish.com last year. The service is a different proposition to merchants than the usual 'cost per click(s)' such as used by Microsoft's current nemesis Google. The payment model being used by Microsoft is called Cost Per Acquisition, and the advertiser only pays when the advertisement results in a purchase. Given that advertising expenditure is one of the first things to be cut back during a recession (sorry, downturn) this offers advertisers potentially more bang (and return) for their advertising bucks. Interestingly as well, this cashback proposition doesn't just put Live Search up against Google; it also allows it to have a go at the likes of Amazon and eBay. There are a couple of 'catches' (sorry, conditions) to the programme, which include a $5 minimum balance in the online account to which the cashback is credited before transfer to a bank or even PayPal account, and a 60-day waiting period. This is presumably to account for the potential of the purchased goods being returned to the vendor. Microsoft has also not said how much it is committing to the initiative or how long it will last.The concept is well thought out and will be attractive to merchants. However, this move has not happened in isolation. It must been seen in the context of Microsoft's other actions in the search arena. The proposed acquisition of Yahoo, the release of a 'Find My Location' service for mobile phones without GPS functionality on the UK version of Live Search, and a search-driven celebrity 'portal' called xRank targeted at young people. Add to this the completion of the FAST acquisition giving Microsoft enterprise search products for all sizes of organisations, and it can be seen that the underlying, and continuing, message here is that Microsoft is very determined that it will be 'king of search' whether that is in the enterprise or the consumer markets.
