According to Yusuf Mehdi, Senior Vice President of Microsoft's Online Audience Business Group, the company is ending the Bing Cashback program that has been offering users of the Bing search engine a way to make back some money on their purchases from certain retailers.
Mehdi says Bing Cashback was a "test-and-learn" program and after over a year, they will be retiring the feature.
The last day for Cashback purchases is July 30th, 2010.
Why is Microsoft ending the program? "When we originally began to offer the cashback feature, it was designed to help advertisers reach you with compelling offers, and to provide a new type of shopping experience that would change user behavior and attract a bunch of new users to Bing. 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. But after a couple of years of trying, we did not see the broad adoption that we had hoped for."
Additionally, the company says they will give 12 months of support after the July 30th deadline, with users able to redeem any cashback they have in their accounts for that 12 month period as well.
The last day for Cashback purchases is July 30th, 2010.
Why is Microsoft ending the program? "When we originally began to offer the cashback feature, it was designed to help advertisers reach you with compelling offers, and to provide a new type of shopping experience that would change user behavior and attract a bunch of new users to Bing. 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. But after a couple of years of trying, we did not see the broad adoption that we had hoped for."
Additionally, the company says they will give 12 months of support after the July 30th deadline, with users able to redeem any cashback they have in their accounts for that 12 month period as well.
