MSN PPC Advertising Long-Awaited Debut Announced You probably already know that there are really only two major players in world of PPC advertising: Overture and Google Adwords. By end of 2005, there will likely be a third: Microsoft's MSN Search.

Microsoft recently announced that it is launching its new MSN PPC advertising engine in Singapore and France by mid-late 2005. Smart marketers are probably already planning how they might justify advertising their products or services in Singapore to get a taste of new service. The service's introduction into Canada, UK, and US may very well come before end of 2005.

The new MSN advertising program has been long awaited. MSN is Microsoft's leading website property, and perhaps web's most visited "portal" (website with both search and content such as news) after Yahoo! MSN's search engine accounts for one in five web searches, putting it in third place behind Google and Yahoo!

Search engine advertising mostly a two-player game Currently, MSN shows advertising that comes from Overture, web's largest online advertising network in terms of revenue. Overture was bought by Yahoo! a number of years ago. Since Yahoo! is direct competitor of MSN in every way, plenty of people have been wondering why MSN didn't take its advertising program in-house long ago. It seems especially strange considering that even Lycos, whose search engine now accounts for a small fraction of total web searches, has its own advertising network.

How do you convert online advertising traffic into customers? The key is a phenomenon of human behavior that only comes into play on web.

You won't read about this phenomenon in books or articles on general principles of advertising or direct marketing. In fact, traditional advertising professionals and direct marketers often create only so-so online advertising campaigns simply because they've never heard of this phenomenon, even though it's essentially first law of human web surfing behavior.

How to convert your online advertising traffic into customers Ready to find out what that all-important first law of web surfing is? Prepare to be not very amazed. You see, everyone who surfs web already knows about this phenomenon of human behavior because we all do it--even you.

So here it is, first law of human web surfing behavior, which you absolutely must take into account when marketing your website: While surfing web, almost everyone will hit "back" button if they think there's a chance--even a small chance-- they've come to wrong web page.

The corollary to this law of web surfing behavior: Anyone who clicks through to your site via an online advertising link needs to know they've arrived at right place as soon as they get there.

Immediately. Within a second. From a click glance. Without having to read anything. The average human attention span on web has been measured at eight seconds, and you'll have already lost a few seconds while page downloaded.

The Key(word) to Converting Advertisement-Clickers into Customers How do you make absolutely sure visitors feel like they've arrived in right place?

Make title and first heading of your landing page (the page on which a visitor "lands" after clicking on an advertisement) same as headline of advertisement that brought your visitor there. If landing page links to a banner (image) advertisement, use same pictures and color scheme as advertisement.

The landing page absolutely must immediately remind visitor of advertisement.

The advertisements, in turn, must flow logically from keywords they are targeting. Even if your advertisements are appearing on websites rather than search engine results, you need to be thinking in terms of keywords people are using to search for your product in order to speak language of your prospective customers.

That's why it is very important both your advertisement and landing page incorporate target keyword prominently, in headings as well as page body. That's also why it's so important you don't send your visitors from online advertising to your homepage--it's unlikely you could optimize your homepage for all your possible advertisements. Visitors who arrive via advertising need to land on a special "landing page," or they may crash and leave your site.

Conversions: your advertising campaign's goal But what happens once visitors land on your site and decide to stay more than ten seconds? It's no use if they just hang around. They need to convert.

Important definition: In online advertising parlance, saying a website visitor "converts," means he or she has taken a desired action toward becoming a customer, either 1) buying something or 2) contacting you for more information, thereby becoming a lead.