Playing Nicely Together: Ask Sponsored Listings and Microsoft Deliver Search Advertising to Small Businesses

 

Recently, Search Engine Land's Danny Sullivan wrote a blog post, titled If Search Engines Were Frat Houses From Movies, where he compared Ask.com to Animal House's Delta Tau Chi, and Microsoft to the ROTC.

Fair assessments? Depends on who you ask. But can you imagine two such entities agreeing on anything?

We can.

Just last week, Microsoft announced that they're adding Ask Sponsored Listings (ASL) to their adManager service. adManager is the part of Microsoft Office Live (MSOL) platform that enables small businesses to purchase and manage their search-based keyword advertising from Microsoft Office Live.

More Options, More Eyeballs

For small businesses who use Microsoft Office Live to run their websites' search advertising, this partnership will come as very good news. It gives them more options to market their products and services online. And the inclusion of Ask Sponsored Listings increases their potential to attract new customers across the ASL network of over 59 million unique users, every month.

Breaking it Down for Small Businesses

Office Live, if you're not aware of what it is, is Microsoft's internet-based suite of products that offer, among other things, the ability for small businesses to create websites and bring their businesses online in an an un-intimidating, do-it-yourself manner. Among MSOL's offerings is adManager, a tool that businesses can use to create and manage online ads.

And now, thanks to the partnership with ASL, these businesses can use adManager to purchase, manage and optimize their ad campaigns across the entire ASL publisher network.

It's a win for us at ASL because it lets us offer our network to a whole field of advertisers that might otherwise not be able to access it. It's great for Microsoft because it helps them provide more advertising options to their customers. And it benefits Small Businesses because it makes it even easier for them to have success online.

Giving Small Businesses Some Attention

You can find out more information about this partnership via Reuters, Infoweek, Eweek, Clickz and a host of other news outlets that picked up the announcement. Or you can find out more about Microsoft Office Live and Ask Sponsored Listings on their respective Web sites.

With all due respect to Animal House's Delta/ROTC rivalry, when two players like these work together, a lot of good can come of it--and there's no telling what we'll come up with next.

--Todd Morrish
ASL Product Manager
API Channel