In an agreement that could give Bing more than one-third of U.S. search query volume market share, Microsoft has signed a syndication partnership with adMarketplace that some describe potentially as
a multimillion-dollar deal.
Effective Wednesday, adMarketplace will serve Bing Ads across its network of digital search properties, according to Steve Sirich, GM of marketing for Bing Ads.
It also brings Bing's advertisers to adMarketplace publishers, explains Adam Epstein, adMarketplace president and COO.
The relationship connects Bing advertisers to
adMarketplace publishers, showing keyword-targeted advertisements to millions of publishers like Rodale when readers express intent on sites like Men's Health, Women's Health, Prevention, and Runner's
World.
Bing represents about 20.6% of U.S. desktop query search share volume. Add in partnerships like Yahoo and others, and market share jumps to about 30%, according to comScore's latest
percentages.
Microsoft also signed a similar partnership in the U.K. with Gumtree, part of the eBay Classifieds Group. The Gumtree deal expands Bing Ads reach in the U.K., marking the
business' first deal of this kind in the region. It increases reach and volume of Bing paid search advertisements across devices, capitalizing on the engine's 27 million unique U.K. searchers, who in
aggregate generate 759 million, or 11.6%, of monthly queries in the United Kingdom, per comScore.
Microsoft has been building Bing partnerships with a variety of companies, from Apple to
Verizon's AOL. In April, Microsoft and Yahoo announced an amendment to the relationship. As part of the amendment, the two agreed to transition the customer relationship for the enterprise sales from
Yahoo back to Microsoft. The transition of the more than 30 markets began in July and will likely go through June 2015, Sirich says. He expects U.S., U.K. and Canada to complete the transfer by
January 2016.
Sirich says the large percentage of Yahoo searches are still served by Bing Ads, though Yahoo has made strides with Gemini paid search advertising units. "While we have seen some
of the supply transition to Yahoo Gemini, we certainly see a large percentage with Microsoft Bing Ads," he says.
Microsoft expects Windows 10 to become an important growth driver for Bing. On
Tuesday, Microsoft announced 110 million devices running Windows 10, and expects to see growth to 1 billion devices within a few years.