Microsoft announced today that it would close Bing cashback this summer. The company said it originally launched cashback to help advertisers reach customers with compelling offers that, in theory, would provide a fresh shopping experience and attract a "bunch of new users" to Bing. Unfortunately, things didn't exactly pan out as Redmond expected and it's filing the soon-to-be-dead service under "test-and-learn."
Although the company accumulated over a thousand merchant partners who experienced "great" return on investment, cashback simply didn't live up to Microsoft's hopes. "After a couple of years of trying, we did not see the broad adoption that we had hoped for," the company said in a farewell post today.
Microsoft said it plans to recycle the experience gained from cashback by introducing new programs for both users and advertisers. The official closure is on July 30 at 9PM PST, but you'll still have a year to redeem any cashback you've earned. The company will also provide a year of customer support to "ensure a smooth transition."