Comments on: First Glance: How Pay-Per-Click Marketers Should React to Bing

By: Amy Fanter

Amy Fanter — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 00:02:23 +0000

Has anyone else had their ads simply stop running and told after a gazillion calls that its in DEVELOPMENT? We were whitelisted going in and I cant get any one to return a call or help me.

By: Nick Stamoulis

Nick Stamoulis — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 14:49:50 +0000

Yes they have put together a 100 million dollar ad budget for their new search engine so you can imagine that we will be seeing a lot more ads running on prime time television in order to get the word out.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 19:56:05 +0000

Thanks for your all your comments!

Jon – I think that the combination of a widely-available desktop product would go miles to improve the advertiser experience on AdCenter, and would improve the quality of Bing’s sponsored search.

Charles – I’ve already noticed that my personal queries on Bing are more decision-focused than my more general Google queries. I wonder if Bing’s decision-oriented advertising has influenced the type of user. I suspect it has.

Ellerton – Your comments on users seeing fewer ads based on previous behavior is very interesting, and impressions are certainly something to track.

Kevin – I think your situation may be a case of search on low advertising-competition keywords. However, note Ellerton’s comment about Bing serving fewer ads to users who generally don’t click on them. Perhaps you’re among that group.

Michael – I’m right with you!

S.P. – I don’t think we can be so sure about Google’s continued dominance. There was, after all, a time when, say, Altavista or Yahoo were market leaders. Especially on the ‘Net, people will follow a quality user experience, and quickly. I don’t expect Bing to reach 70 percent share levels, but I can definitely see it showing steady increases after the initial bump from TV advertising.

By: Ellerton Whitney

Ellerton Whitney — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 18:48:58 +0000

Going along the lines of Charles’ comment, according to our Microsoft reps, the only real change that will come on the PPC side of things is that users who exhibit a low propensity to click any ads will stop seeing them served. In this manner, results will become “more relevant,” your impressions should decrease, but your CTRs will increase as such because you are still getting the “good” clicks. The reps would not disclose how Bing determines someone is not going to click ads, or how long it takes to determine such. I’m not sure how I feel about arbitrarily decreasing impressions, but so far, I have not seen an impact.

By: S.P.

S.P. — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 18:23:21 +0000

In my opinoin, Bing doesn’t offer too much competition to Google because Google is simply way too established for another search engine to take it’s shine; HOWEVER, Bing has an amazingly amuzing TV commercial out right now and I believe this will drive traffic to Bing.com.

With this being said, it is imperative that us as marketers pay more attention to AdCenter.

By: Michael

Michael — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 13:19:59 +0000

“…you eventually completed the import (mostly manually, of course) and you’ve let the campaigns sit there.”

So right! The worst part of my month is addressing Ad Center. Even the simplest things (such as negative keywords and campaign navigation) are a chore with that clunky interface. Google give us marketers the tools to be successful with PPC – tools I have yet to see from Yahoo! or MSN/Live/Bing.

Until the usability and toolset of Yahoo! and Ad Center are on par with Google (and *maybe* the traffic increases as well) then anyone who cares about minimizing diminishing returns will spend as little time within those campaigns as possible.

By: Kevin Gamache

Kevin Gamache — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 22:34:56 +0000

Are they rolling out ads slowly? The searches I have done that should have yielded some ads; cars, insurance, new bicycle. I finally got ads when searching for Insurance Quote, but not when I did New Car Quote. Or is this an indication of lack of competition on the Microsoft search space?

By: Charles Thrasher

Charles Thrasher — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 15:31:32 +0000

Andrew, you’re right in assuming increased competition but I would also expect increased ROI from a more qualified audience. There’s a lot of current work behind the curtain in adCenter (imagine Frank Morgan pulling the levers in the Wizard of Oz) improving the relevance of ads to queries. As well, Bing’s focus on retail should further qualify traffic. Retailers who tailor their ads and landing pages to the searcher’s intent should see a bump in conversions.

And yes, the adCenter UI still has a ways to go. I think you can expect to see significant improvement in the API to support the larger ecosystem of tool providers.

By: Jon Greenhalgh

Jon Greenhalgh — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 08:06:16 +0000

Ad Center can be extremely tedious but it can be worthwhile. It’s worth noting that MSN Ad Center Desktop (Google Adwords Editor style software) is currently in BETA and is being tested by selected agencies. It has it’s weak points as you would expect from a Microsoft BETA but it does make the import and management of accounts a LOT easier. Watch this space.