As of May 1, Microsoft’s small and medium business brand changed its name to Bing, bringing the name and design in line with the search engine’s homepage.
People who use Bing for search are in decision-making mode, Microsoft revealed in a statement about the rebranding. The ad buying experience through adCenter for SMBs is now more cohesive with the search user interface.
“By aligning with the Bing brand, SMBs will better understand that they are buying traffic on Bing and Yahoo search,” a Microsoft representative told Search Engine Watch. “Many advertisers find the program through the Bing homepage, where they click on ‘Advertise here.’ This shift helps those customers follow a more intuitive path to what they are looking for.”
The Marketers and Agencies brand remains unchanged, identified as Microsoft Advertising. Citing a recent comScore Core Search custom report, Microsoft revealed in their rebranding announcement that unique searchers on Bing and Yahoo Search are likely to spend 26 percent more than the average searcher and 9 percent more than those using Google Search in the U.S.
In a direct jab at their top competitor, Microsoft also announced that “Microsoft and Yahoo have searchers you can’t reach on Google: 49 million unique searchers using Bing and Yahoo search (including Microsoft and Yahoo core search sites) do not use Google in the U.S.”
In February, we reported that Yahoo organic search market share had fallen, while both Google and Bing made gains. Google continues to dominate in the paid search arena, boasting the strongest YoY global paid search growth in the industry for Q4 2011, as Bing dropped 18 percent, according to Covario.
Related reading
5 things that Bing does better than Google
While Bing only has 5% of the desktop search engine market share worldwide to Google's 87%, it is undeniably still a key player in the search engine rivalry contest and it has many enviable features. So what does Bing do better than Google?
The collision between PR, content, and SEO: How to make it work for you
In the digital age, the importance of a website presence, blogging, social media posts and other elements of building an online brand seemed like they would sound the death toll for traditional communications and marketing strategies, like public relations. But instead, PR continues to prove itself an essential element of marketing communications.
10 tips to make your Magento online store more secure
An estimated 240,000 ecommerce stores use Magento for their online operations, which accounts for nearly 30% of the ecommerce platform market. Unfortunately, this not only makes clear that Magento is a worthwhile program, it makes clear something else: It’s a focus area for cyber criminals across the globe.
How advertisers can score big on the next device launch
On the cusp of the latest iPhone release, how can advertisers benefit from the launch of a new device? Columnist Purna Virji from Bing offers insights to help advertisers cash in on the hype surrounding new device launches.
