While it seems far too early to be thinking about Halloween, never mind Christmas, Microsoft - or Microsanta - has given out tips to help market to internet Christmas shoppers.

The company's Tina Kelleher writes on the adCenter blog that a specific search engine marketing campaign should be created for the Christmas season, which can be activated each year, rather than trudging through the current campaign to make it "festive".

She warns that bidding for holiday-specific keywords can resemble the "last Buzz Lightyear in the shop" problem, where competition and prices are all a lot higher.

But fear not, because a Microsoft product is available which will help to estimate what the bids should be, although this requires another product from the company to be bought first - meaning that Christmas will at least be kind for Seattle IT workers.

Expanding keyword lists is also something you should be doing, which can again be helped by this wonderful bit of kit.

Microsoft obviously wants people to buy its products, but how accurate and useful are these "bid estimator" programs?

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