The world’s biggest social media site, Facebook, are to dump Microsoft adCenter as they prepare to launch their own advertising platform. But with the original deal not running out until 2011, full worldwide Bing integration appears to have been the real deal sweetener.
Evidently the Facebook site is a lucrative place for any advertiser to show their products and is equally effective in delivering money to the host – Microsoft. However, in something of a surprise move, Facebook have ended their agreement with the technology giant to manage their advertising system in-house.
With a year left in the contract, clearly Microsoft will seek something in return and it appears as though it may come in the form of Bing being integrated into Facebook as the default search engine, worldwide. Obviously the exact nature of the agreement is still largely under wraps, but it appears that Bing could be set for a huge promotional push, starting off with 350 million+ Facebook users.
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Following Google’s very public fallout with the Chinese Government they remain surprisingly unscathed. Their rivals on the other hand are enduring travails aplenty in the aftermath; so who exactly has come out of this scandal worse?
Whilst Google are reporting ‘business as usual’ behind the bamboo curtain, ascertaining how true that actually is can’t be done without delving deep into the realms of speculation. What we do know though is that Yahoo! have received a severe reprimand from their own Chinese counterparts, Alibaba, for seemingly siding with their search rivals in the Chinese hacking scandal. Likewise, Microsoft have been singled out for blame due to a flaw within their Internet Explorer browser that allowed Google to be hacked; an issue that has subsequently led the French and German Governments to suggest that their respective citizens abandon the Internet browser in favour of the various alternatives available.
So whilst Google have been at loggerheads with the Chinese authorities and threatening a withdrawal from the country [see: Google Threatens China Walkout], their search rivals have done little to steal the initiative. Of course it is all hypothetical at this point, but Yahoo! appear to have dug themselves a bit of a hole by siding with Google – not least with the aforementioned Alibaba – and Microsoft could lose more ground with their browser’s blacklisting in Europe.
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It appears that real-time search could finally become a reality. Following our post earlier in the month, Twitter negotiating real-time search deal with Microsoft and Google, it looks like the ink is now drying on an agreement that will see the aforementioned search engines gain complete access to the social media site’s network.
This is a brave new world for search engines and could well change the way we view and use SERPs in the future. Bing and Google are now free to start developing ways to incorporate Twitter feeds into their searches, opening up unique opportunities for the respective engines and their users.
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When I posed the question, ‘How will Twitter monetise…?’, at the tail end of last week, I didn’t expect the answer to be quite so immediate. Today it has been announced that Twitter are holding talks with both Google and Microsoft to seal a deal that will see feeds being shown alongside standard search results.
This is a move that has been some time in the making. Bing stole a march on Google at the beginning of July by integrating the tweets of a select band of Twitterati royalty (as covered in our blog post, ‘Bing Unleash Real-Time Search’). Whilst Twitter has struggled to find a way to make money from its hugely popular service, the search engines have been seeking ways to tap into its real-time capabilities. A match made in heaven, surely.
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As always, the beginning of the month heralds the latest round of search engine statistics and this time it’s bad news for Bing. Despite making some significant gains since its (re)release back in June, it appears some of the steam may well have gone out of their marketing bandwagon.
Of course the numbers vary from one analytics service to another; however, most agree that Bing lost around 0.2 – 0.25% leaving it with 3.39% of the overall global search market share. The major discrepancy is in the numbers associated with Google; because whilst NetApplications suggest that they dipped ever so slightly, StatCounter had the Mountain View based giants actually gained just under 1% to a staggering 90.54%.
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One major issue facing social media platforms is how exactly to monetise their services. Subsisting on investor funding isn’t sustainable, so turning the corner and making a site profitable is a significant priority, but one which many struggle to achieve.
For many years YouTube was a cash cow for Google. Whilst it was widely used and hugely popular, the video sharing site just couldn’t find a way to turn that into hard currency. In fact two months ago to the day, in a strange piece of social media circularity, it was announced that Facebook had 250 million users whilst YouTube were on the verge of making profit. Today, Facebook has reached 300 million users and is itself the one who is ready to start funding itself.
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Whenever you create a new PPC advertisement there’s a temptation to see how it appears on the search engines. This temptation can grow further if it fails to deliver the expected traffic rates or has an unusually high bounce, thus indicating a potential issue.
The only issue with looking for your advert through the search engine itself is that it can create unnecessary impressions and lower the Click through Rate (CTR), which may in turn adversely affect the campaign. So how can you preview your ads without upsetting the statistics and potentially costing yourself more money? Well, Microsoft Bing have come up with a simple solution.
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One of the advantages of Pay Per Click advertising on Bing is the age and gender demographic targeting.
The Microsoft adCenter has collected data overtime from various sources to create this targeting feature estimating the visitor’s gender and age:
- MSN Messenger
- Previous Search Queries
- Market Research
- Customer Service
- Registration Data from Hotmail
The results are obviously not 100% accurate but various studies in China show that the data collection and algorithms guessed the gender correct 80% of the time and the age of the visitor at least 60% of the time.
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Now that you have created and activated your Microsoft adCenter Account, I thought I would follow on my previous blog post ‘Pay Per Click on Bing – Account Setup‘, with step-by-step guide on creating a new campaign.
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The Background
Bing is the newly refurbished Microsoft search engine, formerly known as MSN Live and MSN Search. Microsoft launched Bing on 1st June 2009, with a clean and uncluttered layout and a daily image that is rotated daily to provide searchers with a fresh and attractive search experience.
Pay Per Click Advertising
It’s not surprising that since the launch of Bing, more and more advertisers are looking to promote their business on this new and emerging branded search engine. Bing Pay Per Click advertising is run in much the same way as it was previously on MSN Live and Search, via the Microsoft adCenter programme.
The Microsoft adCenter platform has currently remained exactly the same; the only major difference in fact is the search engine that your ads will appear on. You will still see your ads appearing at the top or right hand side of the results page in the same format as before.
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Microsoft’s (relatively) new search engine Bing has continued to eek away the lead of its more established counterparts, most notably Google. The latest figures from the US show that Bing now commands 8.9% of the search market there, up half a percent from 8.4%. Conversely, Google has since slumped by 0.3 of a percent down to 64.7% for the month of July.
This trend has continued in the search figures, with Bing attracting 29million additional searches; representing a 2.4% increase from June’s figure of 1.21billion. Once again, Google was impacted with a 4% loss of 352million; although with over seven times the total search volume of Bing, they won’t be overly worried.
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If anyone thought that the deal between Yahoo and Microsoft was done and dusted they’d better think again. Stories have continued to emerge since the agreement was finally brokered last week over how this working partnership will function, and just what Yahoo are getting out of this whole deal.
Well, according to some sources this morning they’ll be getting $150million in three bitesize chunks over three years. For their part, Microsoft will be recruiting 400 Yahoo personnel into its ranks; all of which is supposed to help make the transitional process far smoother.
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They said it could never last, and sure enough, after a tumultuous three year relationship plagued by anti-trust legislators, Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt has parted company with Apple. The growing conflicts in interests between the two technology titans made Schmidt’s position on the Apple look increasingly untenable, and so it has proven with the announcement that he will be stepping down on their board.
It’s not hard to see why so many viewed Schmidt’s alignment with Apple as potentially anti-competitive. With Google already dominating the search market and diversifying elsewhere, Apple have rebuilt a technology empire around the Mac, iPod (including iTunes) and iPhone. With the release of the Android phone operating system, Google found themselves in direct competition with Apple; something which would not have been openly welcomed by Steve Jobs et al.
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The tit-for-tat exchange between Microsoft and Google continues to gather pace. In the run up to the long-awaited Windows 7 operating system, Google announce Chrome OS. As Google look to bury news of Bing’s surprise early release, Microsoft partner up with Yahoo to start a more concerted effort to down the search leaders. Now Google are ramping up their efforts to market their online office applications; clearly a direct competitor to Microsoft’s Office suite.
They’ve even returned to a more traditional form of advertising. In order to gain extra business Google will be plastering billboard advertisements on major highways surrounding a number of American cities. Maybe the resurgent Microsoft, a company that has long since been blighted by the likes of Live Search, Windows Vista and Internet Explorer 6, has gotten to Google. Or maybe, and most probably, they developed this package in 2007 and need to give it one last push to see if it has any legs.
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As Microsoft look to have completed a serious search engine coupe following a major deal with Yahoo, other areas of their software empire are looking far from stable. With today’s announcement that Firefox is nearing a billion downloads, Internet Explorer’s market share stands at just 60%; whilst still a healthy lead – Mozilla now have around a third share – it’s a shrinking margin in an area that they formerly had near complete domination.
Whilst the ten digit figure Firefox has amassed will raise eyebrows, it is slightly misleading. The download statistic covers every download since it was launched back in 2004 and includes all updates and multiple entries by single users across many devices. However, with 31% of market share, which has included some record breaking gains, Mozilla’s Firefox is certainly by far and away the leading competitor to Microsoft’s Internet browser dominance.
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