Bing Cashback Cancelled

Bing cashback, which offered consumers rebates on products purchased through certain advertisements on the Bing search engine, is being discontinued on July 30, 2010. The program did not achieve Microsoft’s goal of increasing Bing’s market share and may have been costly for the company.

Good for Consumers and Advertisers

Under the program, which launched as Live Search cashback in May 2008, certain advertisements appeared on Microsoft’s search engine with a small symbol and a percentage discount. Users who signed up for the cashback program could click these advertisements and the advertiser’s site would place a cookie in the user’s browser noting that the user had arrived through cashback. If the user then purchased a cashback-eligible product on the advertiser’s site, the advertiser would report the sale to Microsoft. After a waiting period of up to 60 days (to ensure the product wasn’t returned), Microsoft would deposit a rebate equivalent to the discount in the user’s cashback account. Users with at least US$5 in their accounts could ask Microsoft to pay them the full balance in any of several ways, including by PayPal account, direct deposit, or paper check.