With its share of the Internet search market in steady decline and its pursuit of an alliance with Yahoo in doubt, Microsoft is taking a new approach to jump-starting its search engine — offering rebates to people who use it to find and buy some products.
Microsoft executives said the program, called Live Search cashback, is part of a plan to come up with new approaches to areas of the search business where they see opportunities to make inroads against Google, the market leader.
The new program focuses on searches for products to be bought online, which Microsoft executives said account for roughly a third of search queries and a majority of search advertising revenue.
PHOTO: AP
“This is a very big part of the US$20 billion search market,” Microsoft chairman Bill Gates said at an advertising conference run by the company. “Make no mistake, we are about having the best search, having the best results.”
Some innovations in the business model of search, like Live Search cashback, “will help drive that,” he said.
Live Search cashback is essentially a marketing effort by Microsoft to promote its search service, which lags far behind those of Google and Yahoo in popularity. On Wednesday, the research firm comScore reported that Google’s share of all searches in the US grew once again last month, to 61.6 percent from 59.8 percent in March.
Google gained at the expense of Yahoo and Microsoft, which saw their shares of the market drop, Yahoo to 20.4 percent, Microsoft to 9.1 percent.
Google has put marketing dollars into some of its services, but it has managed to dominate in search while spending virtually no money to promote its search engine. Google declined to comment on the Microsoft announcement.
Microsoft said that 700 merchants offering more than 10 million products have agreed to participate in the program. They include Barnes & Noble, Circuit City, eBay, Foot Locker, Home Depot and Hewlett-Packard.
“It is a great opportunity for buyers who come to eBay,” said Matt Ackley, vice president for Internet marketing and advertising at eBay. “And it is all about driving demand for our sellers.”
EBay is one of the largest buyers of search advertisements on Google and other search engines. Ackley said that if Microsoft’s program is effective, eBay might shift some of its advertising dollars to Microsoft from Google.
In most cases, Microsoft will determine the amount of the rebate that shoppers will get. On a Samsung digital camera that costs US$90 to US$107, rebates range from 2 percent to 5 percent.
“Microsoft’s issue is lack of consumer share,” said Bryan Wiener, the chief executive of 360i, a digital marketing agency that specializes in Internet search. “This is an interesting effort to try to motivate consumers to use Microsoft without cheapening the process. Will the incentives be enough? Time will tell.”
As part of the program, Microsoft is also unveiling a new business model that allows search marketers to pay for ads only when people buy a product, rather than when they simply click on an ad.
GAINING STEAM: The scheme initially failed to gather much attention, with only 188 cards issued in its first year, but gained popularity amid the COVID-19 pandemic Applications for the Employment Gold Card have increased in the past few years, with the card having been issued to a total of 13,191 people from 101 countries since its introduction in 2018, the National Development Council (NDC) said yesterday. Those who have received the card have included celebrities, such as former NBA star Dwight Howard and Australian-South Korean cheerleader Dahye Lee, the NDC said. The four-in-one Employment Gold Card combines a work permit, resident visa, Alien Resident Certificate (ARC) and re-entry permit. It was first introduced in February 2018 through the Act Governing Recruitment and Employment of Foreign Professionals (外國專業人才延攬及雇用法),
RESILIENCE: Deepening bilateral cooperation would extend the peace sustained over the 45 years since the Taiwan Relations Act, Greene said Taiwan-US relations are built on deep economic ties and shared values, American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) Director Raymond Greene said yesterday, adding that strengthening supply chain security in critical industries, enhancing societal resilience through cooperation and deepening partnerships are key to ensuring peace and stability for Taiwan in the years ahead. Greene made the remarks at the National Security Youth Forum, organized by National Taiwan University’s National Security and Strategy Studies Institution in Taipei. In his address in Mandarin Chinese, Greene said the Taiwan-US relationship is built on deep economic ties and shared interests, and grows stronger through the enduring friendship between
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday said that it would redesign the written portion of the driver’s license exam to make it more rigorous. “We hope that the exam can assess drivers’ understanding of traffic rules, particularly those who take the driver’s license test for the first time. In the past, drivers only needed to cram a book of test questions to pass the written exam,” Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shih-kai (陳世凱) told a news conference at the Taoyuan Motor Vehicle Office. “In the future, they would not be able to pass the test unless they study traffic regulations
‘COMING MENACINGLY’: The CDC advised wearing a mask when visiting hospitals or long-term care centers, on public transportation and in crowded indoor venues Hospital visits for COVID-19 last week increased by 113 percent to 41,402, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday, as it encouraged people to wear a mask in three public settings to prevent infection. CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said weekly hospital visits for COVID-19 have been increasing for seven consecutive weeks, and 102 severe COVID-19 cases and 19 deaths were confirmed last week, both the highest weekly numbers this year. CDC physician Lee Tsung-han (李宗翰) said the youngest person hospitalized due to the disease this year was reported last week, a one-month-old baby, who does not