adVision Marketing

When you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em…  After watching Yahoo and Bing lose search market share to Google again, and again, and again, it wasn’t a huge surprise to see the two make friends and ultimately share Bing’s search platform in an effort to cut costs and boost revenue.

In an effort to trump Goliath, Yahoo’s search results will soon be powered by Bing’s technology in exchange for a % of ad revenue. By combining the two platforms, they’re claiming a boost of 62% more search volume than before. Although I’m optimistic, just where are these additional searches going to come from? As a search marketing specialist, I am all for competition in this space, as it should only improve the traffic and results I generate for my clients.

Projections aside, us marketers will soon manage traffic from both platforms in a single interface, MSN AdCenter. This alone raises more than a few questions:

1. Will I have to re-build my Yahoo campaigns to meet MSN’s optimization performance standards? (Yes, I build each a bit differently)

2. What about match types? Will my Yahoo standard match terms switch over to exact match? Will my advanced match terms become broad match?

3. Going forward, how should I estimate traffic/spend in these channels for future proposals?

I really don’t know what this partnership will mean to me in the coming months (years?), when my campaigns actually transition, but I do know this: No “B-ahoo.com”, or “Yah-ing.com”, will ever seriously compete with Google. Short of Mountain Valley being sucked into the earth, I don’t see it happening. This doesn’t mean the partnership won’t be successful. If these two can cut the search deficit, even a little, I’d call it a win-win. Only time will tell…

Thanks for listening -

Matt