Internet Marketing and Social Media Consultants

Microsoft is launching a new program called “Live Search Cashback” that will basically provide coupons to users who purchase items using Microsoft’s Live Search as their portal. Apparently, Microsoft has already signed on a good number of partners and will offer savings from 2%-30%.

It’s not exactly like a coupon since the price will not be reduced for the product you purchase. Instead, once your credits equal $5 or more, Microsoft will allow you to claim your money through Paypal.

Some partners already signed on to the venture include Barnes & Noble, Sears, Home Depot, and Office Depot.

The technology Microsoft is using is based at least partly on their acquisition of Jellyfish. Jellyfish is a rather novel site that puts an unknown quantity of items up for an initial high bidding price that steadily falls throughout the day. Customers wait until the item ends up at a price they are comfortable with, not knowing whether or not there will be any more items left. I’m baffled at how this technology works for Microsoft Live Search Cashback, but I’m not a programming expert.

What does this mean for Microsoft? It could attract users ready to buy things, thus increase the value of their ads. However, it may also mean that users will go to Live Search to buy things and use Google the rest of the time. I could see it playing out like this: everybody still has Google search in the upper right corner of their browser, but they’ll use Live Search from time to time to shop.

To lure in advertisers, Microsoft is using a cost-per-acquisition model (CPA) where the companies only pay when a sale is converted. Cost-per-click models do not always yield sales, obviously, so Microsoft may have an advantage there.

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