Microsoft's Bing Gains In Paid Clicks

bing vs googleMicrosoft continues to gain share for paid clicks on Bing, but still lags far behind Google and other search engines, according to Efficient Frontier, which began tracking clicks a week prior to the official launch early this month.

The stats released Tuesday suggest that Microsoft is holding gains on paid-click search ads. Justin Merickel, VP of marketing and new product development at Efficient Frontier, says Bing's click share rose 13% versus the week prior to launch, between May 25 and 31. Although Bing continues to lag Google and Yahoo, the numbers represent an incremental 5% lift above the first week.

Although gains look promising, Bing's aggregate click share is less than 5% of the market. "It's too early to tell if Microsoft will continue to gain share or if they will fall back to prior levels," he says. "It will take a few months of data before advertisers can determine if it will change their strategy or budget."

The lift could provide insight into where advertisers will allocate additional budgets in the coming months if gains are sustained. Efficient Frontier data last week also showed that Microsoft's paid-click share rose with the launch of Bing. It revealed a paid-click share lift of 8.1% for the week of the Bing launch, compared with the week prior.

Merickel believes the features in Bing's "decision engine" -- such as the ability to drill down into specific categories and discover keywords -- contribute to the gains because it helps people more easily find relevant results. "People are searching and finding results and clicking to get the content," he says.

It's important for Efficient Frontier to keep close tabs on changes with Bing, Merickel says, because the company needs to help clients make important budget allocation decisions for campaigns.

Efficient Frontier manages more than $750 million for clients. Over the long term, Bing's percentage of the paid search market will influence whether to put the money in campaigns that run on Google, Microsoft or Yahoo, he says.

Bing Click Share graph

1 comment about "Microsoft's Bing Gains In Paid Clicks".
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  1. Kayla Smith, June 24, 2009 at 8:57 a.m.

    On the paid click side Bing defenitely has an advantage. Just search for the term wii. Notice the percent off coupon for eBay...
    http://www.searchenginepartner.com

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