For many, Google’s AdWords is the go-to choice for their pay-per-click advertising campaigns, which makes sense considering they make up 67% of the market share. But why settle for casting your net in only 67% of the water, when you can cast it over 90% of the water and have an even better chance of catching a big fish?
Bing or Yahoo! may each make only a small difference in your business on their own, but since joining forces and creating the Yahoo Bing Network (YBN) in 2010, they are a force to be reckoned with. Yahoo! and Bing now run on the same Microsoft AdCenter network with the same partner sites. Collectively, they make up nearly 30% of the market share. This is a good enough reason to consider the other benefits of adding Yahoo! and Bing to your marketing strategy.
It’s Easy to Set-Up
You may be thinking that you will have to start from scratch pouring time into creating a brand new ad campaign for YBN. There is no need for this because they have made it incredibly simple to import your entire Google AdWords account directly into your YBN account. This makes it basically hassle free if you already have a Google AdWords account set up.
Save Money
The Yahoo! Bing Network costs about 50%-70% less on a per-click basis than its competition at Google. If you are paying by impressions, the cost can be 75%-90% less than AdWords. This can add up to huge savings, while still allowing you to reach a market of over 45 million potential customers who are only using YBN.
Less Competition
YBN may have a smaller market share, but this can actually be a good thing for your business. On Google you are competing with hundreds or thousands of businesses for ad space and the attention of your customers. Think about all of the competitors that are in your market. There is a good chance they are using Google AdWords exclusively while not even considering the Yahoo! Bing Network, and this leaves the market wide open for you to reach customers that wouldn’t otherwise know that your company existed.
Higher Click-Through Rates?
Click-Through-Rates (CTR) are an important measure of a successful campaign. This metric shows how many people who see your ad are actually clicking on it, and therefore is a good measurement of the effectiveness of your advertising. Several well-known companies including Citicards and JCPenney are using both YBN and AdWords and actually seeing a higher CTR using YBN than advertising on AdWords. Though higher click-through rates may not be a reality for every keyword, it is worth comparing them on platforms as this may mean that more people are taking action on your keywords with the YBN, and therefore getting one step closer to becoming your customer.
Reach Different Demographics
Bing is the default search engine for Internet Explorer users, and recently Yahoo! took over as the default engine for Mozilla Firefox. Not only did this create a shift in the amount of users, but this also shifted their demographics. Bing also powers “Siri” web searches on the iOS. These considerations can be important for your specialty campaign.
For example, did you know that a recent comScore survey found that users of the Yahoo! Bing Network skew toward:
- College graduates and graduate school students
- Mature age group of those 35+
- Slightly more women than men
- Households with children
- Households with incomes more than $75,000
There may be a great opportunity that you are overlooking. At the very least, it may be worth testing your campaigns with both programs to see what demographics respond the best to your ads.
Yahoo! and Bing advertising may not get your ad seen by as many people as the dominating Google AdWords, however they may get your ad seen by the right people, and at a much lower cost than the competition. With these benefits, and its simplicity of use, there are a lot of good reasons to test the waters with the Yahoo! Bing Network.
Leave a Reply