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If your search marketing budgets haven’t incorporated Bing Product Ads just yet, it might be time to step back and wonder why. Sure, Google may own 2/3rd’s of the search marketing share, so it’s only logical for you to run your campaigns there. But, the flip side of the coin is rooted in a number of factors that bear a closer look. The most obvious factor of differentiation is the bing ads demographic distribution; user overlap can happen, but you can expect to find very different demographics and very different numbers that pertain to the use of the lesser adopted search engine; to the tune of nearly 150+ million people who use YBN (the Yahoo! Bing Network), in fact. Not quite a billion but 150 million users ain’t too shabby. Bing remained a distant second with 18.7 percent Does that mean Bing needs to define your targeting strategy? No, not quite. But why is it beginning to attract a higher numbers of users and PPC advertisers? Well, first of all, Google’s stronghold over a few verticals is loosening up a bit. And this goes without saying, but Bing Product ads is definitely the more cost effective advertising platform of the two. Between bid competition low cost website advertising and comparatively lower Click Through Rates (CTR), Bing has given people enough reason to switch over or at least diversify. And all of these reasons are worth looking at with a finer-toothed comb. The Background Before we go further, let’s take a moment to backtrack a little bit. A while ago – specifically Q3 2012 – AdGooroo, a market research company operating out of Chicago, examined six major verticals in the US online advertising market: Shopping & Classifieds B2B Computer & Internet Travel Financial Services, and Education According to AdGooroo, most of the search traffic volumes pertain to the categories above. While AdWords, quite obviously, took the lead in five of the six categories above, a surprising frontrunner on YBN was the Financial Services category as far as ad impressions are concerned. The Results? 1. Better Ad Impressions Look at that difference. That’s over a full percentage point higher, which is a significant finding. Incidentally, the numbers for the Financial Services vertical includes giants such as Citi cards and the Fidelity Group. This is quite possibly a rollover sentiment from Yahoo!’s solitary days of news updates. Right away, that should prompt you to stop thinking of Bing as Search Marketing’s step-child. However, if that isn’t enough, perhaps this reason will convince you. 2. Lower Costs Per Click (CPCs) You don’t need a genius – or us – to tell you that lower Bing CPCs equate to prettier looking ROI at the end of every reporting cycle. Between Google and Bing, it’s a very simple demand-and-supply equation that works. Google owns and is constantly gaining a higher market share, i.e. higher volumes of search traffic and phenomenal click-through rates. Therefore, Google is in a great position to charge premium pricing, which marketers happily dish out because, well… because Google. On Bing, the CPC is a smooth and cool 10-24% lower in comparison with Google. I know I say this a lot, but really, that’s not too shabby. Not too shabby at all. If your hard-earned dollar is going to spread much further and help you rise to first-page SERPS a lot faster, wouldn’t you at least consider it? Learn More: How to get started with pay per click advertising [Infographic] Oh, fine. Here’s another bunch of numbers for you to look at before you make up your mind. The good news is that digital marketers or small businesses with tighter budgets don’t have to feel left out of the fray. YBN is decidedly a better fit for firms with smaller marketing budgets. Also, the crossovers between both browsers are gaining steam as well, at least as far as verticals for Financial Services, Shopping and Classifieds are concerned. While Google still owns the other four categories, we’re willing to wager that there’s a slow and steady migration of the wildebeest taking place as we speak. Look. We’re a digital marketing agency and Google *is* our bread and butter. And we fully realize that these numbers may be a tad outdated. But! We’re convinced that there’s more to Bing than meets the disgruntled searchers eye. Are we saying you need to place all your eggs in one basket? Not at all. All we’re saying is that you need to place your wares in front of many more (and different) eyes. With YBN, we’re looking at a faster road to first-page SERPS, cost-effective adverting and better looking ROIs, and in the words of AdGooroo a “ripe, incremental opportunity for advertisers seeking to maximize their search efforts.” Besides, Bing, Yahoo and their pay per click advertising partners constitute nearly 30% of the US search market. So the question really is: Why aren’t you advertising on Bing yet? Webmaster Blog
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