Can a sweepstakes approach to search work? It is true that iWon.com employed this concept with its search engine when it launched in 1999. However, MSN is not a gambling site and the folks there seem to be aware of some possible PR issues: by throwing into the mix the prospect of directing one's winnings to a charity they may be preempting criticism that the company is venturing into the territory of promotional bribery.
How does it work? MSN has a secret list of keywords, and should a person happen to plug one of these words into the search engine, a link will appear telling the person that they may have won a prize and that they need to fill out additional information to enter the lottery. MSN's official rules tell us that the odds of winning are approximately 4,000 to 1.
Some individuals in the search engine marketing community have reacted to this idea with trepidation, the main fear being the eventual devaluation of the ad space related to keywords. Bryan Wiener, president of search engine marketing firm 360i, in a conversation with OnlineMediaDaily, probably spoke for many search engine marketers when he said "From the marketer's perspective, it raises a bit of a red flag any time you have to incentivize users to use your service. We would have to get a real understanding of whether people were using the service because it was delivering the best value."
Gary Stein, a search expert, also in conversation with OnlineMediaDaily, expressed his distaste for the idea. "It's desperation--it's terrible. It's just not a good idea at all," he said. "Any time you're in a position where you're paying people to use your product is a bad situation. People should be wanting to use your product because it's a good idea. Is it hard to catch Google? Yeah. Nothing's been successful so far," he said. "But this is the lowest level. It's not something that a valued brand would do."
Time will tell if MSN can put a good spin on this. In the meantime, an anonymous poster at Threadwatch.org, who examined the service, had this to say: "The fact that the winning box goes where the ads normally go shows that they are really incentivizing ad clicks. I hope none of my clients ever end up featured as one of the lucky target phrases."
To read more on this subject, look for eMarketer's forthcoming research report on Search Engine Marketing, due in March 2006. If you would like to be notified when this report is available, click here.