R.O.EYE Blog

By Dan Austin, Programme Executive, R.O.EYE

The giant that is Microsoft, in its increasingly bitter battle with Google to gain a larger share of the lucrative search market has announced it will launch their affiliate ‘offering’ by offering cash back to customers. Called Live Search Cash back; it is part of a plan by the software company to come up with new approaches for its search business as its proposed take over of Yahoo now looking increasingly sour.

This is a good move on the part of Microsoft, certainly in the PR department, as it will help promote their search service attractiveness to consumers which comes a distance third to both that of Google’s and Yahoo’s.

It is reported to be launching its cash back service with in excess of 700 merchants offering between them 10 million products, with names such as eBay, Foot Locker and Hewlett Packard already jumping onto the Microsoft cash back wagon. All American companies I hear you say, and you would be right, however its worth remembering that if this takes off State side you can bet your bottom dollar that it will be rolled out in the UK fairly swiftly. As a consumer who normally would trust the search engine results, would I start to question the relevance of the displayed ads if I knew cash back was involved? Maybe. In that case there is no way this will work and affiliates shouldn’t be worried. Right? Well in answering that question you would have to consider Microsoft’s recent purchase of the company Farecast. At the moment a travel vertical but Farecast is promising to put search results back into the hands of the consumer, Microsoft will use this recent purchase for more than just travel.

Microsoft is not trying in anyway to muscle in on your affiliate commission; it is simply trying to increase its market share of search by offering consumers a kick back for using their search engine.

What ever happens in the future with Microsoft’s cashback network, success or not, it is sure to bring affiliate activity to the forefront of consumer thinking.

Watch this space…

By Michelle Anthony, Programme Executive, R.O.EYE

Last week Yahoo! launched SearchMonkey to little fanfare here and practically no hype.  The article I found featured the launch as a sideline against the ongoing Microsoft will they/won’t they buy-out story currently unfolding.  That said, they did put on a launch party Stateside - if there are any of those monkey biscuits left I’d love to sample one!

SearchMonkey is a plug and play application which will allow developers to increase the visibility of their natural search listing.  Users will be able to roll over listings to see a bubble containing further information about the featured site and an accompanying image.  The effect is very similar to the previews that were available when you hover over a listing in the updated Ask.com.

The idea behind this is that companies will be able to make their listing stand out above the rest, but what if everyone opts to use SearchMonkey? Yahoo! will become a very loud place and the resource which advertisers put into the development will fail to create an impact.

I also wonder who is likely to use SearchMonkey.  First impressions are that it looks quite easy to use and easy populate the necessary fields, deeplinks can be included and the enhanced ad is easily edited.  It could therefore be a useful tool for affiliates looking to stand out and for merchants looking to cut through the noise.

With Google so dominant in the search market there will be a resulting batch of advertisers who will not opt to use this, reasoning that there is little value in heightening the visibility of a Yahoo! advert when the result is still not likely to win the viewings, clickthroughs or conversions of a listing on another search engine.

SearchMonkey will be viewable to Yahoo! users in the coming weeks.  Once a few jazzy ads start appearing I am sure more advertisers will follow, but for now it’s a case of watch this space.