According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, Microsoft's MSN unit has inked a deal with Ingenio for pay-per-call advertisements on MSN's search service for mobile devices. Ingenio will place an ad above standard search results using MSN's free Windows Live Search service in the U.S. Users searching for a local business might first see an ad from an Ingenio advertiser located in that same area--the user can then click-to-call that advertiser if interested. Like most Web-based search advertising, Ingenio sets the prices for each ad in an online auction. The highest bidder, who still has relevant ads for that geographic area, wins the day. Ingenio has similar deals with AOL on its mobile and yellow page services and Go2's mobile directory service.
For more on the MSN, Ingenio deal:
- see this article from the WSJ (sub. req.)