Microsoft to Provide Ads for CNBC.com

Microsoft Corp. has prepared itself to provide online advertising for CNBC’s financial news site. Microsoft said that it will be the exclusive third-party seller of contextually driven text ads on the site starting later in December. The ads will be displayed at the beginning in March 2008. The companies did not disclose financial terms of the deal.

According to Jon Tinter, a general manager at Microsoft, the company plans to offer advertisers the option to buy ads on CNBC.com, which is part of General Electric Co.’s NBC Universal division, together with ads on Microsoft’s own financial site, MSN Money. CNBC.com gets about 2.6 million unique visitors each month. Moreover, Microsoft has planned to aggregate information about CNBC.com visitors’ web surfing habits to better target advertising in the future.

CNBC will maintain its own ad sales team that will focus on selling video ads online and on CNBC TV. In addition, Microsoft has invested lots of money in its advertising business this year, including the US$6 billion acquisition of online advertising company aQuantive Inc., which closed in August. However, Google Inc. remains the largest seller of online advertising. By this movement, Microsoft shares edged up 23 cents to close at US$34.76.

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