**by Wister Walcott**
Bing has made a splash in the media recently – but now that the
hype has faded, what will be the real impact of the new search engine
for search marketers in the trenches? Most professional search
marketers are now used to the perpetual changes in algorithms, bidding
systems, performance metrics, and ad center tools that occur every
time a search engine shifts its strategy. Bing may be the first new
search engine in years that actually keeps things the same, while at
the same time offering a new opportunity to drive revenues from mature
search programs. While Bing's ad center, Microsoft Advertising
<http://advertising.microsoft.com>
, is pretty much the same as prior iterations appearing on MSN.com
and Live Search, it may require marketers to adjust their strategies
to take full advantage of Bing's assets.
As reported here
<http://searchengineland.com/bing-comscore-sees-gains-compete-sees-same-21158>
on SEL by Danny Sullivan, some early research showed gains for Bing,
while other reports showed traffic patterns across all the search
engines remaining largely the same. Those reports looked at visits to
each engine and the number of searches performed. At Marin Software,
where we closely track paid search spending, we did see a slight
increase in spending in Microsoft Advertising – during a week when
spending on both Google and Yahoo dropped slightly. And the spending
jump was based on an increase in the number of clicks, not the cost
per click. This probably makes sense, as Microsoft did not do a strong
outreach effort to advertisers in advance of Bing's launch. It's still
unclear how Bing will impact the SEM market in the long-term. In the
meantime, here are three tips search marketers should keep top of mind
when running paid search programs on Bing.
Keep Bing's differences in mind
Many marketers have never bothered to move their Google ads to
Microsoft Advertising, but you should. Just ask your Microsoft Ad rep
if they will accept an export from your Google account, and you could
be up and running quickly. It doesn't have to be a lot of your time,
but will result in incremental traffic to your site.
The conversion rate may be slightly lower on MSN.com
<http://www.msn.com>
for some categories, so you can keep the same bids or lower them by
about 15%. For lead generation categories such as insurance, weight
loss, or credit checks, the conversion rate actually appears to be
better on MSN, perhaps due to differences in quality score enforcement
and possibly demographic differences.
Think about the demographic differences carefully, as MSN/Bing users
will tend to be less technology savvy. Of course, most searches are
performed on Google for all users, but on the margin, Windows users
who do not bother to change their defaults are more likely to end up
at Bing, where as more technology savvy users will likely be using
Firefox and Google. What is the impact of this for search marketers?
Depending on your category, your ads may be more or less suitable for
Bing searchers.
Leverage Bing's synopsis feature
The Bing "synopsis" feature (which shows a snippet from the
results page) is beneficial to advertisers, as it will likely keep
users on the results page longer, instead of clicking away to another
site. Depending on the number of ads that show up, the mouseover can
overlap the ads themselves (see below). In this example, the ad in
position 8 (Kohl's) gets better treatment than ads 5, 6 and 7.
However, for most advertisers, click-through volumes will be too low
to draw any statistically significant conclusions from these
differences.
<http://www.flickr.com/photos/23148333@N06/3701939861/>
Know the ins-and-outs of Microsoft Advertising
While Microsoft has launched a new look and feel for Web visitors
with Bing, the backend and ad center are largely the same. While there
are important differences between Microsoft and Google, the most
critical issues are in measurement. When using Microsoft tracking,
search marketers cannot track revenue amounts, only the occurrence of
a sale. Assuming your orders are of different values, you will want to
use another tracking technique such as Google Analytics, Omniture Site
Catalyst, or Marin's tracker. Don't try to measure costs and
conversions by different match types – it's really not possible with
Microsoft Advertising. There is, however, a nice parametrization
feature that can cut down on the number of ad groups you will need,
which is very handy for advertisers with a large numbers of products.
Bing is a blend of the old and the new, and best-practices in search
marketing still apply. If you are managing very large search marketing
programs, Bing probably won't be the main focus of your job, but it
was and is still a great place to pick up some incremental traffic.
Here at Marin, and I imagine across the search marketing industry, we
will pay attention to any demographic differences that the Bing
front-end yields over time. But as with anything in paid search, you
don't have to take anybody else's word for it – you can jump in
directly to measure your own results.
Opinions expressed in the article are those of the author, and not
necessarily Search Engine Land.
Wister Walcott <http://searchengineland.com/author/wister-walcott/>
is a co-founder and the vice president of Products at Marin Software
<http://www.marinsoftware.com>
. In this role he directs the development of Marin Search Marketer, a
full-workflow paid search analysis and management application for
search advertisers and agencies.
<font size="-1">
Upcoming Search Marketing Expo events you won't want to miss:<ul><li><a
href="http://searchmarketingexpo.es/smx-saopaulo/2009/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=text&utm_content=footertext&utm_campaign=SMX%2BSao%2BPaulo%2B2009">SMX
Sao Paulo</a> - August 4</li><li><a
href="http://searchmarketingexpo.com/east/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=text&utm_content=footertext&utm_campaign=SMX%2BEast%2B2009">SMX
East - New York City</a> - Oct. 5-7</li><li><a
href="http://searchmarketingexpo.com/stockholm?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=text&utm_content=footertext&utm_campaign=SMX%2Bstockholm%2B2009">SMX
Stockholm</a> - Oct. 12-13</li><li><a
href="http://searchmarketingexpo.es/smx-mexico/2009/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=text&utm_content=footertext&utm_campaign=SMX%2BMexiso%2B2009">SMX
Mexico</a> - November 11</li><li><a
href="http://searchmarketingexpo.com/west/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=text&utm_content=footertext&utm_campaign=SMX%2BWest%2B2010">SMX
West - Santa Clara, CA</a> - March 2-4, 2010</li><li><a
href="http://searchmarketingexpo.com/advanced/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=text&utm_content=footertext&utm_campaign=SMX%2BAdvanced%2B2010">SMX
Advanced - Seattle, WA</a> - June 8-9, 2010</li></ul>Attend a <a
href="http://searchmarketingnow.com/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=textlink&utm_campaign=SMN%2Bgeneral">Search
Marketing Now</a> Webcast - it's free! Upcoming webcasts:<ul><li><a
href="http://searchmarketingnow.com">How Large Offline Marketers Drive
Superior Search Marketing Results</a> - July 21</li><li><a
href="http://searchmarketingnow.com/">Trademarks, Brand Terms and PPC
Advertising: Updates You Must Know</a> - July
22, 2009</li><li><a
href="http://searchmarketingnow.com/webcasts/wc090728">Attribution
Management Buyers Guide</a> - July 28</li></ul>Interested in advertising or
sponsoring Search Marketing Expo or Search Marketing Now webcasts? <a
href="http://thirddoormedia.com/contact/sales.shtml?utm_source=searchcap&utm_medium=email&utm_content=textlink&utm_campaign=General%2BSales">Contact
us</a>.
<div><a href="http://www.superbhosting.net/"><img
src="http://www.searchmarketingnow.com/_images/superb.gif"
border="0"></a></div>
You are receiving this email because you subscribed to a Search Engine
Land, Search Marketing Now or Search Marketing Expo newsletter. To update
your subscriptions or unsubscribe, use your newsletter preferences page at
http://third.thirddoormedia.com/lists/?p=preferences&id=2&uid=f9779113b77d03598707df46ae032f9b.
Or send your written request to: 279 Newtown Tpke., Redding, CT
06896</font>
--
Powered by PHPlist, www.phplist.com --
0 comments:
Post a Comment