Microsoft announced recently that it was currently developing a highly innovative tool, which will allow people measure the effectiveness of online ad campaigns. Called Engagement ROI, the new reporting tool will be part of Microsoft’s online advertising platform. The software maker said that Engagement ROI would really be able to make people aware of the impact of online ad campaigns, rather than simply counting clicks.

Engagement ROI is currently in beta release, but Microsoft said that it would undergo testing with important advertising agencies such as World Vision, Neo@Ogilvy, McKinney and Mindshare Interaction, and others.

Engagement ROI was developed by Atlas and will come as an integrated part of Microsoft’s Atlas Media Console, which is a software tool used for launching and managing online advertising campaigns. Atlas is a company previously owned by aQuantive that was bought by Microsoft in May 2007 for $6 billion. Atlas has remained the software maker’s most significant acquisition related to its advertising business.

But, Microsoft’s advertising business is not working quite properly, and the recent departure of Steve Berkowitz, Microsoft’s online business group’s senior vice president, as well as the software maker’s unsuccessful offer to buy rival Yahoo were interpreted by analysts as the admission of this fact. Still, Microsoft doesn’t want to give up.

So, let us wait and see whether Engagement ROI will help Microsoft become a real threat for Google and Yahoo.