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Bing Booms Extra 8 per cent in PPC
Microsoft’s rebranding exercise – ditching the misleading “Live” tag from their search engine and replacing it with the annoyingly memorable (and grudgingly appropriate) “Bing” has seen some impressive results in the opening few weeks of service.
Of course, in the first week, Bing delivered a lot of hype, a hype which could not possibly be maintained.
It was no surprise then that StatCounter showed Bing leapfrogging Yahoo! Search, give Google the briefest of bloody noses, only to be smacked back down to where it belonged as the third ranked search engine in the market place. The flash of brilliance was short lived and online life continued pretty much as normal.
However, fresh statistics from Efficient Frontier have shown that Bing has managed to capture the imagination of pay-per-click (PPC) advertisers. Bing has managed a sustained 8.1 per cent increase in paid clicks since its launch, giving online advertising revenue boosts to Microsoft at an important juncture in its search history.
It’s worth remembering that Google generates over 95 per cent of its revenue from PPC management, overseeing the millions of ad impressions on its various online platforms. If Microsoft can make inroads into PPC, shifting advertising budgets to Bing away from Google, then the larger search market will start to swing its way also.
Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer, usually so bullish, remained reserved and humble at a recent Detroit conference. “I don’t want to over-set expectations,” Mr Ballmer said, “We are going to have to be tenacious and keep up the pace of innovation over a long period of time.” The truth is that Bing has a long way to go before it can truly be a contender to Google, but Bing is gaining momentum, and will need to continue doing so if Microsoft is to remain a serious player in this space.
Microsoft News posted by David Finklehorn on 19 June 2009
