Google or Bing?
In the advertising world, what you have to say about your product is just as important as where you say it. If your customers all drive cars, advertising inside the bus station won’t do much good, no matter how catchy the slogan.
If your business advertises online, the clear choice for pay per click ad campaigns for much of the last decade has been Google, but competing search engine Bing could end up giving Google a run for its money.
But it’s Not Google
When you compare the success of online ad campaigns on Google and Bing, the well-established Google really holds some major advantages over Microsoft’s Bing, which will celebrate its first birthday on May 28.
First of all, Google has become a verb. How often does someone tell you to “Just Google” something at work? Has anyone ever told you to “Just Bing” it?” Unless people start “Binging” things on a regular basis, I just don’t see Google’s domination of the search engine market ending anytime soon.
What this means for businesses is Bing may not be the most effective choice for PPC advertising. One of our major clients has an extensive PPC campaign going on right now, and the results tracked by Google’s AdWords service and Bing’s AdCenter speak for themselves.
Over a four-week period, the campaign wracked up 421,456 impressions and 5,743 clicks on Google. During that same time period, Bing only generated 202,041 impressions and 503 clicks. Despite the fact that half as many people saw the ads on Bing and less than a quarter of one percent of the Bing impressions led to clicks, the Bing ads cost on average three cents less than Google.
One Big Step for Bing?
But don’t rule out Bing just yet. As Mudbug Media Marketing Specialist Tara Curtis cleverly pointed out in this recent blog, Google’s long running domination of the United States internet market ended earlier this month when Facebook became the most visited website in the country for the week ending March 13th.
While Bing has fluctuated between the 16th and 23rd spots this week, Yahoo has held steady at the number three spot. With the announced merger of Microsoft and Yahoo, the nascent search engine will get a huge boost, exposing Bing advertisements to millions more people nationwide.
More Bing for Your Buck
With Bing potentially riding that merger to the top of the charts, advertisers will find themselves in an interesting situation. Like all things Google, AdWords is an extremely user-friendly system.
AdWords allows for constant and easy manipulation of all aspects of a paid search campaign, while Microsoft’s AdCenter is not nearly as user friendly. Making changes to ongoing campaigns in AdCenter is a time consuming process, and since Bing is only one year old, few people have had the time to get acquainted with its ins and outs.
So if Microsoft’s alliance with Yahoo brings Bing into more direct contention with Google as one of the top search engines in the world, online marketing professionals like myself are going to find it necessary to know how to optimize paid search campaigns for Bing with the same expertise as they do Google campaigns.
What This Means to You
While it may be too early to abandon AdWords and focus all your energy on AdCenter, it would certainly be a wise move to be proficient with both systems. Paid search campaigns are dynamic and can fluctuate as market values and economic landscapes change.
Online marketing is an evolving but necessary facet of today’s advertising landscape requiring constant attention and adjustments. If you are doing everything on your own or if the marketing firm you contracted for the campaign isn’t on top of new developments or possible market shifts, you can end up with ads that no one sees.
Google is already a powerful search engine and Bing could become one soon.
Use your advertising dollars wisely.
