Is Bing now in a position to challenge Google for PPC advertising?

At present, Google still holds the majority market share in Pay Per Click advertising with approximately 75-80%, but should advertisers now be starting to re-think where they run their clients’ campaigns?

If the United States is anything to go by, then yes. Microsoft launched its new search engine Bing in May 2009, backed with a marketing campaign in the US worth in the region of $100m. Figures released in the US by comScore this month saw the search engine gain 3% to 16.7% in the week commencing 8th June, when compared to the previous week.

Although this is still early days and will not set alarm bells ringing in the ears of Google’s top bosses just yet, it might signal the need for advertisers to start planning ahead for when Microsoft start to roll out their marketing campaigns to Europe.

As an advertiser myself, I am pleased to see more competition in the marketplace for PPC campaigns, as this introduces more choice for the customer and should drive down the CPA for our clients. However, Google is still light years ahead when it comes to the APIs for management and analysis, which could deter advertisers from using Bing for the moment.

Philip Pollock
PPC Account Manager