How to promote your business using Microsoft Adcenter? MSN adCenter- Microsoft's PPC alternative to Google Adwords

Till date, Google Adwords has been the market leader in promoting business online through PPC(pay-per-click) advertising. Millions of people around the world are promoting their business by advertising their websites on the internet through Google Adwords. Google Adwords PPC campaign works by displaying ads through links and banners on websites, which help bring online users to click your Ad and visit your website to check your products or services. But, there is another PPC advertising tool that is as good as Google Adwords- Microsoft(MSN) adCenter network. MSN adCenter PPC is owned by Microsoft and is an alternative to Google's Adwords PPC. You can use microsoft adCenter for promoting your business, whatever it may be - Online selling, Online buying, Services such as Web designing, Auction/bidding, mobile/software services, or you can use adCenter just to promote your website on the internet. Like Google Adwords, Microsoft adCenter network is a Free-to-join network.

MSN adCenter works on the same way as Google Adwords and your ads on adcenter campaign will look similar to Google ads, except that it contains a MSN logo in the ad pallete instead of Google's logo as in adwords. A microsoft adcenter ad will look like the one below

Is Microsoft adCenter better than Google Adwords?

Over the years, Google Adwords has proved to be the undisputed leader in PPC advertising, due to its worldwide audience and successful conversion of traffic into sales. However, Microsoft adCenter is fast becoming a competitor for Adwords and is also being recognised by people who have used Google Adwords to promote their sites. Though Google Adwords and Microsoft adCenter are similar in many aspects, adCenter has certain benefits by which it is better than Google adwords. A recent study by web analytics has found that Microsoft Adcenter adverts converted into sales around 20% better than Google AdWords

Further, the CPC(cost-per-click) of MSN ads are also less as compared to Google Adwords. A particular product ad on Google Adwords costing $0.05 will cost only $0.03 on Microsoft adCenter. Since many other users may on Google Adwords be bidding for the same keywords as you, you may not get cheaper CPC rates. Further, the main advantage of using adCenter is that it's a growing PPC advertisement and hence it's less popular than Adwords, which means it's also less competitive and therefore the CPC is much lower as compared to Adwords. As a result, you can drive huge traffic to your site with less cost

Most of all, the CTR(click-through-rate) of adCenter ads is also higher compared to that of Google Adwords. Microsoft adCenter Network outperforms Google in terms of target-content ad delivery, and as a result you get better click rates than Adwords.

The calculation works out something like the below:

Microsoft Adcenter: 1000 ad impressions a day at $0.03 per click with a CTR of 5%
Google Adwords : 1000 ad impressions a day at $0.05 per click with a CTR of 3%

However, Microsoft adCenter has a major disadvantage. Since it's a growing PPC network and not used by many people as Google adwords, your ads may end up being displayed on less popular sites as compared to popular sites using Google Adwords. As a result, your web traffic may be less compared to adwords.

But CTR also depends on nature of your site content and product. Ads across a particular range of products may be doing well on MSN adCenter and not on Google Adwords, and vice-versa. However, an ideal approach would be to use subscribe your ads on both Microsoft adCenter and Google Adwords campaigns and analyse the pattern and amount of traffic. Based on the results, you can decide which network to choose from.