Search Engine Marketing

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Microsoft to increase ad share with behavioural targeting

Microsoft is to use internet users' personal data gleaned from its Hotmail email service in order to increase its share of the online advertising market.

The software giant currently lags behind both Google and Yahoo! and aims to increase advertising sales for its msn.com news site and other websites by using increasingly targeted advertising.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Microsoft is currently combining personal data on the 263 million users of Hotmail with information gained from monitoring their searches.

Microsoft's head of global advertising sales, Chris Dobson, told the newspaper that the new service would help internet marketers to better target the ads that they send to internet users and avoid wasting time with irrelevant adverts.

He claimed that the new behavioural targeting methods have increased advertising click-through by as much as 76 per cent.

Research has shown that internet users are often more receptive to online marketing campaigns that reflect their interests, with a survey from Acxiom Digital and Harris Interactive revealing that most US internet consumers welcome email communication from firms they regularly use.

Three in four of the 2,541 internet users questioned for the survey said they found such communication "valuable" or "very valuable", while 30 per cent had purchased goods or services as a result of receiving them.


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