Microsoft kills Bing Cashback
Once touted as a significant game changer in search, Microsoft is ending a program that gave people rebates when they used Bing to guide them to online purchases.
Microsoft said Friday it is getting rid of Bing Cashback, a program that allowed advertisers to bid for search advertisements by offering a percentage of sales back to users.
When introduced in May 2008, Microsoft had held out the program as a significant way it could change the economics of search.
"In lots of ways, this was a great feature - we had over a thousand merchant partners delivering great offers to customers and seeing great ROI on their campaigns, and we were taking some of the advertising revenue and giving it back to customers," Microsoft said in a blog post. "But after a couple of years of trying, we did not see the broad adoption that we had hoped for."
The last day to earn cash back on purchases will be July 30, Microsoft said.
