Microsoft adCenter Steadily Losing Advertisers

Microsoft adCenter appears to be having an especially rough time in the challenging economic environment, having lost online advertisers in every month of measurement.

Since November 2008 its number of advertisers in the Top 500K keywords has dwindled from 56,000 online advertisers to 46,000, an 18% drop.

Relative to its size Microsoft adCenter does relatively well in attracting the largest advertisers, having roughly 40% of Google's over $5,000 per month spenders, compared to Yahoo's 50%, but it struggles in attracting the smaller advertisers.

Microsoft Advertising Volume Falls by 50% over the last Five Months

The volume of keywords purchased from Microsoft on the Top 500K Keywords has steadily and rapidly declined over each month of measurement. Microsoft's paid search advertising in the United States looks to have declined by 50% from the start of Q4 2008 to the end of Q1 2009, from 4.0 million ads in November 2008 to 2.0 million ads in March of 2009. This decline in Microsoft search advertising has been driven by both loss of advertisers as well as reduced advertising purchases by retained advertisers.

For data on Microsoft's Biggest Advertisers see AdQuant's monthly Top 100 Reports.

AdQuants Measurement Methodology

AdQuants tracks a half million keywords on Google, Microsoft and Yahoo on a monthly basis, capturing keyword, advertiser, ad position and advertisement among other parameters. Unique domains are assumed to be unique online advertisers.

For custom analysis of our online advertiser data please contact us at 866-427-0202.