Microsoft just announced that Yahoo! Bing Network is the new name for Microsoft adCenter. The search engine says the new name reflects the commitment of both Microsoft and Yahoo to bring advertisers a broad, high-value, and engaged audience that helps them grow their business.
The advertising platform for Bing Ads is the same as it was for adCenter, but it looks like the log-in page is more in line with the Bing search page with a large, landscape image as the background. The new name of the advertising platform is much more of a rebranding effort rather than changes to the important features of the network. The desktop tool, now called the Bing Ads Editor, has also received a face-lift, but the functionality of the adCenter desktop tool and online interface remain the same.
Microsoft has been hard at work to bring its advertising platform up to par to its Google counterpart. It recently released new features like ad rotation capabilities, URL by match type functionality and other elements to increase the usability of the platform for advertisers. What’s more, it was recently announced that Bing will be the default search engine of the Kindle Fire, which will most likely increase the search market share of the network while decreasing Google’s share.
Every day the major search engines keep trying to push the envelope on ways to enhance the performance of your search ads, coming up with information that you could display to engage users. It’s for this reason that Yahoo and Bing are re-introducing a new and better Rich Ads In Search (RAIS).
RAIS will incorporate richer elements into your search ads, attracting more users and hopefully increasing your click through rate. Such elements will include extra links to different pages on your site, forms, images, and even videos.
With these kinds of elements being displayed within the real state of your ads, there is no doubt that you will be displaying more relevant information, as well as a better user experience. Also, you will be able and engage your target audience right from the search environment.
Below, you can see how RAIS was served for a user who was searching for a poker site. Now he/she has the option to click on the ad or watch a video provided by the advertiser without leaving the search results.
At the moment RAIS is still on a beta stage. Also it is only available for branding campaigns and is displayed just on ads on position #1.
News Round Up
Thursday September 8, 2011
MoreVisibility’s Twitterchat (#MVCHAT) took place today, September 8. We discussed the late breaking news that has been announced over the past couple of weeks, including:
MVCHAT is a weekly 30 minute discussion starting at 3:30 pm (EST) covering a variety of online marketing topics. Clients, advertisers, and online marketing enthusiasts are invited to participate in this rapid-fire conversation by following and including #MVCHAT in tweets. Read more about #MVCHAT in the news here.