14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft has launched today its own online ad service for MSN France. Ad Center was introduced last month in Singapore and it would be available in the United States in October.
Unlike its rivals, Google and Yahoo, Microsoft offers its clients a demographic targeting of the ads. In this way, they will be able to establish their target by choosing the age, sex and local time.
MSN AdCenter will provide its clients with detailed reports on keywords searched by a certain group of users, and the ad clients will be able to choose the one that was searched the most. The system is flexible enough to allow its clients to dynamically adjust their advertising budget and they will also be able to receive reports estimating the traffic an advertiser should expect for a certain keyword.
Microsoft hopes that this system will allow MSN to become a more interesting alternative to Google or Yahoo; Yusuf Mehdi, MSN's chief, said that so far the clients' reaction to the new system has been positive.
So far, Yahoo provided the ads placed on MSN, the two companies having a contract valid until 2006.
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