Bing Has Upsides and Downsides
August 22, 2009
I enjoyed “Bing’s Conversion Rates are Awesome; Volume, adCenter, and Agency Relations Not So Much” in the Search Engine Watch Web log. With cleverness or by accident, the story provides some useful insight into how the Google killer Bing is adapting to the real world. First, Search Engine Watch makes clear that Bing delivers a “better conversion rate”. The idea is that an ad on Bing, I assume, gets a serious buyer making a click with intent. That speaks volumes about the Bing user, the pay for clicks, and the cash back marketing methods. Useful information. The nuance that made me smile was embedded in this passage:
Another thing Bing needs to do is communicate more with SEMs. Google and Yahoo! reps contact search marketers frequently, but adCenter is just crickets. However, when you’re not bringing in as much money as Google and Yahoo! (at least on the search front), it’s harder to staff up with account reps. It’s your classic catch-22, chicken and egg situation. The disparity between ad spend on Google and ad spend on Bing seems disproportionate to the difference in market share between the two. This should not be, especially when Bing’s conversion rates are higher.
Bing needs to be a big rooster and have lots of hens producing eggs. Keep those lights on and play that Mozart to mute the hum of the conveyer belt system delivering 24×7 feed.
Until that time, the word “disparity” should trigger some despair in Microsoft’s Bing echelons of power. On the other hand, Google might find the “disparity” a cause for levity.
On the other hand, Microsoft can be proud of its participation in SIGIR 2009. The need, however, is more traffic, not more academic papers in my opinion.
Stephen Arnold, August 22, 2009
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