Microsoft to Offer Paid Spotlight Ads with Free Classifieds
The free classifieds website, know as Craigslist.com, has made it easy for people to buy and sell used items over the internet for free. Microsoft has recently tried to cut into this market by deploying their own version of a free classifieds site known as Windows Live Expo. The idea is similar to Craigslist, where people can list items to sell to other locals, just like newspaper classified listings. However, Microsoft upped the ante once again, by offering paid Spotlight Ads for the members listed items. These Spotlight Ads, provided by AdMission, are a cross between simple banner ads and contextual based ads. The ads will be placed in search results and homepages for similar listed items.
These advertisements come in standard banner, leaderboard, skyscraper and wide skyscraper formats, and will allow the members to place thumbnail photos within the ads. Member ads will be shared with other ads of related categories, so the ad will have more of a chance to reach a potential buyer. Microsoft is expected to charge between $10 and $20 for an item to be listed with the Spotlight Ads. The question remains, however, whether people will be willing to pay for these simple advertisements when they can still list their items for free within the same site. In my opinion, I would much rather sell my item on EBay for a nominal price, and have a much greater chance of selling it, than to list the item with a classifieds site and pay $20 to have simple ads distributed in places where I’m not sure consumers will even see.
In the initial offering, the Spotlight Ads will only be available to automobile and real estate advertisers. Since these items have a much greater monetary value than most items listed in classifieds, the advertiser is more likely to sign up for a pay-based ad than someone just selling a toaster. These advertisers are used to paying to have their cars or houses listed in their local newspaper listings. Microsoft hopes that this advertising model will take off and then allow them to expand the market to other advertisers selling just about anything. However, AdMission has some in-ad features that Microsoft will not be offering in their ads on Live Expo. These features include e-commerce, send-to-a-friend, make-an-offer, and PayPal payment gateways. If this idea really takes off for Microsoft’s Live Expo, then I would believe that they would have to implement these advanced features within their ads. It will be interesting to see how well this advertising plan does, but I still believe that Microsoft will have to fight a lot harder to take over a market that is currently dominated by EBay and Craigslist.
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