This news article from MarketingVox refers to Microsoft’s attempts to encourage users to Search on MS Live… through a scheme called SearchPerks. This isn’t the first time Microsoft does this (see their CashBack program), or other engines for that matter… but there is something fundamentally wrong with this model, and I think it’ll prove to be unsustainable in the long term.
By encouraging users to Search, MS are tampering with the natural dynamics of a searcher’s behaviour. The searchers intentions are now tarnished with a form of greed. I’m sure the main aim is to capture and attract a proportion of users away from Google and Yahoo and have them Search on Live instead, but inevitably a large proportion of user’s subscribing to this program will end up running searches with the sole intention of increasing their ‘perks’ from MS. These ‘fake’ searches will end up resulting in very low conversions for advertisers and will have a knock on impact on the number of advertisers on Live Search.
Ultimately, advertisers are interested in quality of traffic, and where search worked so well was it’s ability to facilitate advertisers presenting themselves at the right place and time in front of a ’searcher’. This particular scheme by MS will unravel this balance… more and more searches end up being for the purpose of getting an MS SearchPerk… resulting in a significant decrease in the quality of traffic advertisers seek.
A desperate attempt…
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