AdCenter Tools for Advertisers Updated

Updates to adCenter, Microsoft’s online self-service system for buying text advertisements on its search engine and affiliated sites, will better help advertisers manage their campaigns. The spring 2009 updates coincide with a major update and marketing push for Microsoft’s search engine, recently rebranded Bing, which could draw more users to the site. By simultaneously updating its advertising system, Microsoft improves its prospects for capitalizing on any spike in search engine user growth.

Content Ads Out of Beta

Advertisers, agencies, and search engine marketing (SEM) companies use adCenter to bid for keywords on Microsoft’s search site; small text advertisements then appear next to search results when users search on those particular keywords. In the United States, adCenter also lets advertisers place these same text advertisements on nonsearch Web sites with relevant content—a feature known as Content Ads.

The spring 2009 update to adCenter includes the following improvements: