Online Ad Marketers Not Bullish On Bing
Advertiser bling for Bing is no sure thing.
Microsoft MSFT on Wednesday is set to officially launch Bing, but the new Web search engine has been available for a while. And it's getting a tepid response from some search marketers, who say Microsoft will have to prove it can pry users away from rivals Google GOOG and Yahoo YHOO before it can expect to get more ad dollars.
Bing has received some good reviews, but so far it's failed to excite many advertisers, says Danielle Leitch, executive vice president of client strategy for MoreVisibility, a search marketing company that helps companies advertise online. Advertisers know Microsoft's previous forays in search proved inferior to Google and Yahoo, she says.
Wait And See
"There isn't too much excitement," she said. "Microsoft has never been able to prove themselves in terms of delivering high volume or heavy distribution of ads."
Many advertisers spend 60% to 70% of their search ad dollars on Google, the most-used search service. Yahoo typically gets around 20% and Microsoft 10% or less.
Advertisers will take a wait-and-see approach on whether Microsoft's new offering deserves more attention, says Yves Darbouze, chief executive of Plot Multimedia, a digital content and interactive marketing company.
"Until it penetrates households, it's not going to be something that advertisers are going to jump on," he said. "They'll want to see people actually using it."
Few people have used Microsoft's Live Search and MSN Search services, which is why the company developed what it's named Bing, and promised to spend $80 million to $100 million marketing it.
In April, Microsoft got 8.2% share of all Web searches in the U.S., down from 9.1% a year earlier, says market tracker comScore. Google increased its search share from 61.8% to 64.2%. No. 2 Yahoo held steady at 20.4%.
Microsoft has been scrambling to get a bigger piece of the multibillion-dollar search ad pie. Last year, it tried but failed to acquire Yahoo or to buy just Yahoo's search service. But as recently as last week, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer confirmed that his company would still like to do some kind of search partnership with Yahoo.
Microsoft has also offered prizes to consumers for using its Live Search service.
The biggest problem for Microsoft is that most people find exactly what they want when searching on Google, says Darbouze.
"Search is about efficiency and effectiveness, and Google does the job really great right now," he said.
But Microsoft is pushing some new features with Bing. It seems especially sharp at suggesting keywords for searches as you type. Another feature attracting attention is Bing's ability to bring up "categories" of information in one search. For example, a search of singer Taylor Swift produces direct links to photos, lyrics, a biography, tour dates, tickets and fan clubs.
Needs To Be 20% Better
It's perhaps a broader method of organizing search results than is offered by Google or Yahoo. But Bing will have to do a much better job than Google or Yahoo search in order to attract more users, says Andrew Lovasz, vice president of search marketing for Moxie Interactive, a marketing agency.
"I would like to see Microsoft succeed, but based on what I have seen right now, they haven't gone to market with quite enough firepower to really challenge Google," he said. "They are doing some interesting things, but it doesn't jump out to the user. The results aren't 20% more relevant than Google's."
In the early going, it appears Bing isn't offering enough to mount a threat to Google, Kristopher Jones, CEO of Pepperjam, a search marketing and interactive ad agency, said via e-mail.
"The chances of Bing becoming a realistic threat to Google are very minimal," he said. "Until Microsoft or someone else can effectively build a better technology to Google, any hype surrounding a new search engine will be short-lived."
Still, the extent of Microsoft's marketing efforts will be unprecedented in the search game. Google, famously, doesn't advertise its search service. Yahoo does limited advertising.
Ask.com, a unit of IAC/InterActive Corp. IACI, promotes its service regularly on TV. But in April, Ask had a 3.8% share of all searches in the U.S., down from 4.3% a year ago, says comScore. Ask and AOL are the Nos. 4 and 5 search engines, but both have failed to gain ground.
