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The Search Marketing Advisor Newsletter Article:
April 2005, Volume 4, Issue 4

search engine marketing

MSN’s Search Featured Sites Listings: Get ‘Em Before They Disappear

by Ben Perry, Ph.D., Paid Search Manager, iProspect

Recently, the buzz in our industry has been all about MSN’s impending launch of its own auction-based bidding environment for paid search ads. However, word on the street is that the new system will not launch until the end of this year, at best. Between now and then, large advertisers have a chance to capitalize on the potential efficiency that the pay per click search ads which currently appear on MSN have to offer.

Before I get into campaign efficiency, let me first provide some background on how the current program works. The top three “sponsored sites” in the MSN search results are for MSN’s Search Featured Sites program (SFS for short), which is a fixed-placement pay per click program. If there are fewer than three advertisers in the SFS program on a given keyword, Overture paid search ads appear in the open spots. Marketers select a number of keywords to run in the program and submit them to MSN. MSN then determines whether any of the three positions are available on each of the keywords requested. Then they give you a single, flat cost per click price to appear in the currently available open spots.

Once you opt into this program, you have contractually agreed to pay for all the clicks you receive. This is why positions aren’t always available; sometimes all three positions are already contractually locked with your competitors. This contract, which isn’t as easy to turn on and off as other pay per click advertising programs, has no budgeting functionality (although MSN provides traffic estimates that typically prevent spending surprises), and forces you to commit to a minimum spend of $75,000 per year. For these reasons, this program is best suited to large advertisers.

Now let’s talk about how you can save money by using this program. The way to do this is to take a look at your existing Overture campaign and pull out the top 50 or 100 highest volume, and highest priced, keywords. Submit these to MSN for review and they will give you a flat cost per click for all the keywords. Now, take a look at the average price that you’re paying for these keywords in Overture. Do not submit the keywords for which the MSN rate is higher than your average in Overture to MSN’s program (unless the market price for those words is rapidly inflating and you are willing to pay to hedge your bets). Changing the keyword set will cause a change to the flat rate pricing, so you may have to repeat this procedure a couple of times to reach a point where you’re getting the right pricing on the right keyword set, while staying north of the minimum spend.

You are left with a set of keywords in which you can get the same clicks directly from MSN cheaper than you could get them from Overture. An added benefit is that on those keywords you select, you’re locking your competitors out of one of those top three positions. MSN also allows minor changes to the keyword set once the campaign is under way, so you can do some additional optimization (changes to creative and limited changes to the keyword set, but no changes to pricing) once you have some data.

Please note that if you’re already bidding in one of the top positions in Overture, you’re already getting many of the clicks available through the MSN program. There are situations in which participation in SFS guarantees you a position you can’t consistently achieve throughout the day, but generally speaking, participation in SFS doesn’t allow you to acquire additional volume. The beauty of the program is that it can provide you with additional efficiency for your campaign. That is, you can buy the same keywords you’re buying now for a lower price. This lower price can’t be driven up by competitors and is guaranteed not to change, at least until the new MSN system rolls out or your contract ends. Experienced advertisers know what kind of returns they get on their top keywords, so there is very little risk for this added efficiency.

Same great results, lower prices — get it while it lasts.

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