Search Marketing Strategies

It's Official- Bing & Yahoo are Partners!

Microsoft and Yahoo! have just received regulatory clearance to join forces in creating more balance in the search engine space.

As previously announced on this blog in July 2009, the partnership is positioned so that MSN/Bing will control the technology side - driving paid and algorithmic results for both platforms - and Yahoo! will maintain the majority of the sales and service relationships.

The self-proclaimed Search Alliance could really shape up as an interesting battle.  Since its inception, Bing has become the fastest growing search engine (mostly at the expense of Yahoo and AOL), and industry leaders have always felt that Yahoo's estimated 2.5 billion US searches per month could be better monetized with superior technology.

The announcement from Bing said the integration goal for the US is "prior to the crucial holiday season" with a staggered schedule for other countries in 2011.  Here's hoping that they pull off this widescale integration with no hiccups, as a large snafu in the middle of the busy holiday season could be painful for retailers.

The Bing announcement also mentioned that it is "business as usual now" and there is no change to your account or service.  However, we recommend doing the following to make sure that your campaigns are prepared when integration is complete:

1. Open an adCenter Account

Some advertisers spend 100% of their time and budget on Google.  If you are one of these advertisers, open up a Bing account today!  MSN usually offers up discounts for new advertisers, so we recommend you try to dig up a promo code.

2. Mirror Campaigns

Launch your whole Google account on Bing!  Many advertisers launch on Google, planning to launch campaigns on Yahoo! and Bing later, but never do.  Make sure that you push all of the work you have done on Google over to Bing to ensure that you have equal coverage on both engines. 

3. Stay Abreast of Developments

When the integration is complete (late 2010), make sure you understand exactly how the two platforms are going to appear in adCenter. Our data shows that Bing has a much better ROI than Yahoo, so you should make every effort to manage these two properties separately. Similar to the Search Network/Content Network for Google Adwords, make sure that you keep these two different types of campaigns separate if possible.

Check out a quick video clip about the Search Alliance:

Search Alliance Video

Microsoft Yahoo Partnership – Part 2 of 3

In the previous blog post regarding the Microsoft Yahoo Deal, I covered all of the important details you need to be aware of when managing your Paid Search campaigns post-integration.  Now, for the second part of the blog series, I am going to cover what Retailers need to do to prepare for the Microsoft/Yahoo Partnership that will most likely take effect in Q2/Q3 2010.

1. Make sure you have an adCenter account!

This might sound like a joke, but common practice for Small to Medium Businesses is to first launch Campaigns on Google and once performance is stable, move the campaigns over to Yahoo and Bing.  So with that, there are definitely a large number of Paid Search advertisers out there that do not even have a MSN/Bing adCenter account.  I would also suggest doing some coupon searches as Microsoft usually runs promotions for $50-$200 in free clicks for new accounts.  Click here to sign up

2. Familiarize yourself with adCenter and adCenter Editor.

Managing Bing campaigns is more challenging and more manual than on Yahoo; take some time over the next few months familiarizing yourself with the adCenter Interface. MSN also handles a few things differently than Google: Keyword Insertion, Automatic Launch on all Match Types, No Daily Budgets, etc. so you will need to learn how to manage these idiosyncrasies. Also download MSN's adCenter Editor. While not as robust as Adwords Editor, Microsoft's adCenter editor is a FREE and very useful tool that makes managing MSN campaigns much easier. Another way to improve your workflow would be to look at strong 3rd party platforms that enable seamless Campaign/Keyword implementation across both Engines.

For ChannelAdvisor clients- This should not affect you much as our API integration with MSN is up to date and our User Interface for managing your campaigns is seamless across all of the Engines.

3. Stay abreast of developments

When the integration is completed (mid 2010), make sure you understand exactly how the 2 platforms are going to appear in adCenter. Our data shows that MSN has a much better ROI than Yahoo, so you should make every effort to manage these two properties separately. If you can prevent it, you do not want to have MSN subsidize your Yahoo performance.

I would suggest following the following blogs: SearchMarketing.com (of course!), Bing Blog

4. Review your MSN Insertion Order

For advertisers that are set up on invoicing with MSN, you will need to review your Insertion Order. The Insertion Order includes limits on what you can spend during a specific time period. Since you will see a large influx of traffic from this partnership, make sure that your 2010 insertion order takes this into account.

ChannelAdvisor Recommendation:  Set the Insertion Order extremely high and change your Monthly budgets according to your 2010 plan.

Stay tuned for Part 3, set to roll out tomorrow that will cover what strategies you can implement to take advantage of this change in the marketplace.

Written by Andrew Belsky (andrew.belsky (at) channeladvisor.com)

Microsoft Yahoo Partnership – Part 1 of 3

It’s getting hard to keep up with all of the changes going on in the world of eCommerce!  If you’re an avid reader of all of the ChannelAdvisor eCommerce blogs you’ve read Scot Wingo’s highly informative posts on all of the eBay changes at our eBay Strategies blog.  Then, Mark Vandegrift and his team of Comparison Shopping/ feed management experts noticed a huge drop in Google Product Search traffic which was covered in detail in a Google Product Search Webinar (also on our CSE Strategies blog).  Then Scot also gave his take on the recent Amazon acquisition of Zappos over at our Amazon Strategies blog – and now it’s finally our turn to report on something exciting!

This morning, Microsoft and Yahoo announced a 10-year Search partnership that states that MSN/Bing will provide the search results for Yahoo Paid and Natural listings. The deal should officially close some time in early 2010 and the migration from Panama to adCenter should take about a year.  This change in the marketplace will directly affect Retailers who advertise on Paid Search.

At ChannelAdvisor, we know how important these changes are so we are launching a 3 part series to cover everything Retailers need to know about this and what actions you will need to take.  This first of this series that we will cover the important details you need to know about this partnership.

Platform Consolidation

As previously stated, this partnership will eventually phase out Yahoo’s Panama platform and all campaign management will be through Microsoft’s adCenter. 

Improved Ad Relevancy on Yahoo

Our data shows that Yahoo’s CTR is less than half of MSN/Bing (2009 YtD- 1.36% vs. 2.84%).  This means that Yahoo is not effectively serving the same quality of ads to users conducting a search that MSN/Bing is currently.  Since MSN/Bing will now be driving all Paid Search results for Yahoo, we expect the CTR on Yahoo Impressions to increase pretty substantially.

Improved Conversion Rates

Our data also shows that Conversion Rate on MSN/Bing is roughly 18% higher than that of Yahoo.  We also expect that Bing powered search results on Yahoo will help improve this metric as well.

Paid Inclusion

For those Retailers currently using Yahoo Paid Inclusion, it was unclear as to the status of the program.  However, since YPI is a form of Natural Search on Yahoo, we expect that this program will be phased out since Bing will now be powering the Natural Search results on Yahoo.

As you can see there are several different aspects of this partnership that affect Retailers.  We view this as an overall positive move for Retailers as it will likely spur a period of innovation from both Google and Microsoft that should ultimately benefit the advertisers.  It will also allow 3rd party software providers, like ChannelAdvisor to spend less time updating to API specifications and more time improving our product.

Stay tuned for the second part of the series which will be posted to this blog tomorrow.

 

Are Your Ads Not Showing Up on Bing.com?

With launching the “decision engine” Bing came a big Bang… popular TV commercials, increasing media attention, and of course, many questions.  One question I have from clients is why can’t they seem to see their paid search advertisements show up for terms they normally rank well for? There could be several factors affecting what you are seeing on your computer. A system improvement that was implemented to enhance Bing’s search algorithm included a feature that detects the likelihood of a particular user clicking on ads based on their preferences, history and other quality factors. This could affect advertisers not being able to verify that their own ads are showing on Bing easily, due to their usage patterns or history.  Currently, you can pull an ad Center keyword performance report to verify that your ads are being served. Also, in the near future Bing has a planned improvement that would allow advertisers the functionality to validate if your ad is serving and where(similar to the Google Ad Preview tool).  I am sure we are going to continue to see new functionality and buzz around Bing.

Written by Erin Gordon (erin.gordon at channeladvisor.com)

Microsoft Joins the Click Fraud Lawsuit Club

Microsoft is facing a lawsuit in Florida from an advertiser who claims he was billed for invalid clicks. The lawsuit was filed by Interactive Retail Management, Inc. who placed PPC ads for their online business, allé Fine Jewelry, on the MSN Shopping Channel and shopping network.

The retailer claims that Microsoft charged for fraudulent clicks back in 2006, which violates the Florida law regarding deceptive and unfair trade practices. The retailer goes on to claim that Microsoft has “failed to take appropriate measures to identify fraudulent clicks, to prevent click fraud or to warn advertisers and potential advertisers about click fraud.” Allé Fine Jewelry estimates that 20% of clicks on their PPC ads are “generated by some method other than a prospective consumer.”

A Spokesperson for Microsoft noted that the ruling to allow the lawsuit in Florida was not based on the merits of the claim. Microsoft plans to “vigorously defend against this lawsuit.”

Click fraud lawsuits are not uncommon; both Yahoo and Google have been dealing with these lawsuits for years. This is the only known click fraud lawsuit against Microsoft so it will be interesting to see how it is resolved. Both Google and Yahoo have settled class-action click fraud suits in 2006.

For the complete article check out Media Post's article at:
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticleHomePage&art_aid=89331

 

Microsoft's CashBack program shows signs of working (15% increase m/m)

Back in June, I theorized that Microsoft maybe on to something with their live.com cashback program and said: "Personally, I'm anxiously awaiting the June search data from comscore. I think we'll see Microsoft Live search take a little share.".

Well comscore is out this week with their data and DRUM ROLLLL....

The results are bigger than I expected!

In a seasonally slower m/m environment you'll see that Microsoft increased queries 15% and for the first time in a long time that I can remember, increased share .7% which is pretty material in the world of search.  And you know what?  Not even that many consumers know about this new program.  If I'm Microsoft, I'd pour some gas on this little fire and do some more advertising, maybe crank out a print ad or TV ad and test that out.  Also, eBay is on sale right now for $31b.  If Microsoft starts to believe this ecommerce strategy is how to outflank Google, I think it's increasingly likely they look hard at eBay vs. Yahoo!.

MSN promotes Live Search/Cash Back via Google Paid Search

If you can’t beat ‘em, advertise with ‘em.

This week we have started noticing Microsoft aggressively advertising its new Live Search/Cash Back program on none other than Google.  Now, Microsoft has always had some advertising presence for things like MSN Shopping but this really seems to have ramped up and I can’t recall them ever directly advertising search.  Obviously Microsoft recognizes that search is a great way to build awareness for a new product – just slightly surprising to see them heavily advertising on Google/Yahoo.  Kind of goes back to the old saying “fish where the fish are” I suppose.

written by Link Walls -- link.walls at channeladvisor.com

Is there a method to Microsoft's cashback madness?

Microsoft acquired the Jellyfish CSE and has used it as the core of their rebate program.  Pundits have dismissed this as futile, but over at eBay Strategies, we have some new information and thoughts that could change your opinion.

News Flash: Microsoft Live Search Cash Back

Microsoft Live Search (David) hopes to take down Google (Goliath) by launching incentive programs that help them relate better to consumers.

Microsoft hopes to make gains on Google in the lucrative business of Internet search through a new service that pays consumers who buy items they find through the software company's search service, according to people familiar with the company's plan.

The software maker is rolling out a service called "Live Search cashback" that gives consumers money back on certain purchases of products found through Microsoft's live.com Web search service, the people said. The new service is part of a broader effort by Microsoft to attract more consumers to its Internet search service and better compete with Google, which is the leading Internet search provider and makes most of its money from advertisements tied to search. For more information, please see: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121136250134610255.html?mod=djemalertTECH

Here's how Live Search cashback works (pulled from http://search.live.com/cashback/):

1) Search
Search for cashback deals at Live Search cashback. Each time you click a Live Search cashback listing, you'll find great deals on the product you chose. Your results will clearly list the cashback savings you'll receive off the store price, and your final bottom-line price that includes tax and shipping costs. Also look for this icon  when you search for a product on Live Search to find great cashback deals.

2) Shop
Compare and sort products by the bottom-line price. Click the best deal to go to the store. Everything you buy during that store visit will be eligible for Live Search cashback. On your first time using Live Search cashback, we will ask you for an email address so we can tell you how to quickly set up your free cashback account.

3) Save
Keep saving money each time you use Live Search cashback. Every time you make a qualifying purchase, we'll send you an email to confirm your Live Search cashback savings. When your cashback account reaches a balance of at least $5, you can claim your cold, hard cash. Terms and conditions.

written by Greg Ives -- greg.ives at channeladvisor.com