ClickZ: MSN's Expanded Overture Ads

Where Microsoft once filtered the Overture contextual ads that appear in MSN's "Sponsored Sites" section - often stripping out the smaller advertisers - it now allows all Overture listings to appear. The move comes in an effort to make the ad content on the site more relevant to each individual user.

Taking relevance a step further, Microsoft split out the single context ad into two different blocks on its MSN pages, keeping the better-performing ads in the more prominent position and demoting those that seem to prove less relevant to page viewers.