Bing Pushes Yahoo! Down to 3rd in Market Share
Something which caught us by surprise recently were new statistics from advertising network, Chitika. They reveal that Bing has taken second place in search market share from Yahoo and claim it has been this way for a couple of months now.
Although most of the other leading analytics companies (including StatCounter) still show Yahoo leading Bing, Chitika’s statistics show that Bing is ahead of Yahoo! by 4.5%.
The stats show that Google remains unquestionably in the number one position by driving 80.97% of search-related traffic to sites in Chitika network. Meanwhile, Bing jumped into the number 2 spot with 10.6% marketing share and pushing Yahoo! down to third position with 6.14%. AOL and Aim make the remaining positions in the top five with 1.22% and 1.12% of the search market, respectively.
Here are the official statistics from Chitika:
Our question is: why is Chitika showing different results?
The fundamental difference between Chitika’s numbers and other rating services, such as comScore & Hitwise, is in the type and source of data they collect.
Chitika collates its data from the search traffic coming into its own advertising network. On the other hand, comScore and other rating services, measure search traffic data from the search engines themselves. The traffic being measured is both paid and unpaid. So if some sites in the Chitika network are doing major advertising on Bing and not Yahoo that could potentially skew the results, however it is hard to believe that it’s a major contributing factor for the shuffle in Bing’s position.
One thing that will be interesting to watch is the impact on Yahoo! & Bing’s market share when their partnership is fully implemented. We will all have to keep an eye out for those stats!
Google Boasts 30% Cost Reduction for Click-to-Call Advertisers
Early this year, Google introduced Click-to-call as a component of its location extensions offering in mobile ads.
Google click-to-call allows advertisers to track online-offline searching and consumer buying patterns across mobile, online and traditional advertising mediums.
If we compare click-to-call to pay-per-click, the latter is based on the idea that a customer visits the website (for which the advertiser is charged), makes an inquiry and then decides whether or not to make a purchase. On the other hand, click-to-call (for which the advertiser is charged) eliminates the first 2 steps and goes directly to the idea that the customer will call to directly inquire about the business, creating a lot better chance of a purchase.
Research from comScore and TMP Directional Marketing shows that more than 83% of customers search online and then contact a business offline, often in the form of a phone call. With click-to-call, Google can successfully eliminate the need for the customer to go offline.
Google recently outlined the success of click-to-call in a case study of San Francisco based auto insurance company, Esurance. The aim of using click-to-call was to enable all customers with a mobile phone to quickly reach an agent live. Esurance ran click-to-call ads and tracked the success of the campaign using unique 800 phone numbers in their ads and the results are quite impressive.
Esurance acquired customers at 30% less than through other marketing channels. Click-to-call mobile ads drove a 30%-35% higher response and a 5-10% lower cost per click on mobile than on online.
Tolithia Kornweibel, Esurance Director of Online Marketing backs up Google’s claim:
With Google mobile ads and click-to-call, our cost per acquisition is 20-to- 30% less when compared with other channels.
The only down side of the click-to-call is that it is still quite new. Once people begin to realize its benefits it could raise the cost as demand increases. But currently this is a hidden treasure for those who got in early.
MSN & Yahoo! to Let Visitors Choose Ads
In an attempt to find the best possible way to deliver advertisements to internet users without annoying them, come September will see websites like MSNBC.com, Yahoo.com, and Hulu.com allowing their visitors to decide which ads they want to watch before the video they actually want to watch.
This new ad-selecting tool called ASq aims to improve customer targeting by letting video viewers decide which of three sponsored ads are most relevant to them. Though there will still be a section of consumers who will not welcome these ads, it may help websites command higher rates while letting sellers attract and improve their client list. Now marketers will have to carefully plan their video ad campaigns for websites that will indeed help them increase consumer targeting through the ASq ad-selector.
Google is yet to decide whether to adopt this format for YouTube, because the potential power of video ads on Google sites can not be ignored. The latest online video ranking reveals that Google sites had the most unique video viewers and the most video-viewing sessions in June. Video ads on Google also reach a commanding 15.4 percent of the U.S. population.
Developed by VivaKi, the digital media branch of Publicis Groupe, ASq has been tested on the new Hulu designed format and research results show that users are twice as likely to click an ad when given a choice
Microsoft’s Global Research Director, Beth Uyenco Shatto says “when you give people a choice, they tend to love you because you’re showing them respect. If it wasn’t for advertising, they wouldn’t be getting the content for free.”
If successful this step may boost the development of the $3.1 billion global video advertising market, an already fast-growing sector.
Google & Verizon Team Up for New Net Neutrality Framework
The concept of net neutrality is that the internet should remain free and open to all. So if 2 given users pay for a certain level of internet access, then these users should be able to connect to each other at the subscribed level of access.
Google and Verizon have released a joint public policy proposal for the open internet detailing how broadband providers can govern how their consumers receive content over the internet.
Why? Currently, a lack of broadband competition gives the providers a reason and ability to discriminate against web-based applications and content providers violating the basic design principles of the “end-to-end” internet: openness, transparency, and user choice and control. Most internet users in established countries receive broadband service from either, a phone company or a cable company, but a large number of people in less developed countries only have one or no choice at all!
The proposal, announced earlier this week by the companies’ CEOs in a conference call, is meant as a legal framework. It intends to please consumers who want to choose what they access on the Internet and how they access it. It would ensure that no internet traffic of any kind is prioritized over any other kind (with the exception of viruses, spam and the like).
The joint proposal is said to safeguard net neutrality. The policy states that “The FCC would also monitor the development of these services to make sure they don’t interfere with the continued development of internet access services.
Here’s hoping that this proposal doesn’t follow the cable TV model by offering a basic service for $X, but putting all the content that everyone wants into the ‘premium plans’, where it can be accessed, but only for a price!
Google ACE to Help Advertisers Measure Campaign Changes
Google have launched a new tool that aims to help advertisers test and precisely measure the impact of changes to their AdWords campaign.
Called ACE (AdWords Campaign Experiments), it’s a free tool that measures the impact to changes to your keywords, bids, ad groups and placements. The tool has just been rolled out to all U.S. advertisers after a successful 2 month beta trial.
Here is how Google explains the tools use:
With ACE, experimental campaigns run side-by-side with the original campaign in a simultaneous split test. This approach lets you run shorter tests that start and stop whenever you like, with less concern about your results being affected by seasonality or other factors. You get more precise impact estimates and more chances throughout the year to test and improve performance.
Google says that fluctuations in demand, shifts in competitor tactics, and even changes in the weather can complicate things if you are evaluating your campaign yourself.
The video below, provided by Google, explains the tool in more detail.
Advertisers will automatically see the ACE tool under Campaign Settings in their AdWords account. Google advises non-US advertisers to stay tuned as the tool will be rolled out to other countries very soon.
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