Microsoft is applauding the success of its initiative to buy searchers and deter them away from rival search engines with financial incentives. Back in May 2008, the software giant introduced Live Search cashback, a program designed to provide customers shopping online with cash awards for their purchases, through Microsoft's search engine. Although the concept is only borrowed by the Redmond company, offering financial incentives to customers has never evolved to the scale implemented by it with its search engine.

“We are pleased to report a 30 percent increase in the number of product offers available in Microsoft Live Search cashback, indicative of the strong advertiser interest in the program and early results on its ROI,” explained Brad Goldberg, general manager of Microsoft Live Search. “We have seen an average of 4.5 million unique users per month visiting cashback, who have conducted more than 68 million commercial queries. We believe this early traction speaks to the differentiated and unique value proposition of Microsoft Live Search cashback for both consumers and advertisers, especially in these tough economic times.”

The statistics delivered by Microsoft for Live Search cashback, in terms of conducted queries and number of visitors, are bound to be boosted by the 2008 holiday season. At the same time, the global financial crisis could also provide fertile soil for the company to grow its search cash incentive program. With consumers looking for the best offers possible, and with advertisers attempting to maximize the profits, Live Search cashback provides the most natural solution.

“In these tough economic times this early traction speaks to the differentiated and unique value proposition of Microsoft Live Search cashback, for both consumers and advertisers. According to a custom comScore study, in Q2 2008, Microsoft Live Search referred almost 12% of total commercial online transactions, and 13% of total online spending among key retail categories. We're encouraged by cashback's first six months, but this is just the beginning — we have more up our sleeves,” promised Kok Waii Wong, group product manager, Live Search cashback.