Google Vs. Bing

Last year Google reported revenues from ad sales on the Google AdWord platform of over 43.6 billion dollars. Chicago based company AdGooroo released a study comparing the average Cost Per Click (CPC) spent in each of the six key online sectors that buy advertising. The amount these sectors are ponying up for a humble mouse click runs anywhere from $0.72 up to $3.51. Take a flat mathematical average of all these CPC’s ($1.83 per click) and divide them into the total amount spent on advertising last year (and pretending, for nicety’s sake, that all six industries buy equal amounts of advertising), and you get 23.8 billion mouse clicks that generated revenue for Google in 2012. Or in other words, every second Google sells 1,509 CPC advertisements to the tune of $2,765. Want to go one step further? Google tops the tech industry pay charts with a staggering mid-career median salary of $141,000, which means it takes Google ads just under one minute to pay their average employee’s yearly salary. Multiply that by 38,739 employees, and Google makes payroll for the entire company in just under 27 days. Even in February that doesn’t take all month. And all of this from CPC advertising.

Google has one major competitor for your CPC advertising dollars, Bing. So the question is, what does the competition have to offer?

To Bing, or not to Bing?

Is it better than Google? No. Not really. Consult the aforementioned AdGooroo study and you will see that Adwords trumps Bing in Click Through Rate (CTR) by anywhere form 2.4 to 5.2 times. The average ad impressions on Google’s platform is 22.5% more than on Bing. If you want your ad to end up on the First Search Engine Results Page (SERP), you’re better off with AdWords as well. Google gets 35.7% more of its advertisers on First SERP than Bing, and of advertisers who use both, only 6% reported they didn’t get First SERP with AdWords compared to 42% who did not land on the first results page with Bing. But these are secondary reasons Google outperforms Bing. The primary reason isn’t the quality of its advertising platform, it’s the simple fact that Google’s search engine commands 2/3 of the market share, while Bing only has 1/3. But look for a moment at the mobile marketplace. Google is the default search engine on all Apple mobile devices and Android devices. Where does that leave Bing?

So are there any good reasons to advertise with Bing? Sure, just run that question through an impartially selected web browser and you’ll get hits all over the web with long lists of reasons to Bing. For me, however, it all boils down to three simple reasons: cost, diversity, and early adoption.

1: Cost. Bing is cheaper, a lot cheaper. About 40% cheaper, in fact. So that’s obvious.

2: Diversity. Think of your advertising budget like a portfolio. You have to diversify. You don’t want all of your money in the stock market, so you buy bonds, annuities, gold and invest in great companies like AOL. That way, when things take a Ted Turner for the worse in one sector, you still afloat in all the others. Putting your entire ad spend in AdWords can be risky. Google plays it heavy handed when deciding which ads they like and which ads they don’t. And when they find an ad they don’t like, or, as was the case in December of ’09, 30,000 ads they don’t like, they simply delete them. How would your campaign fare if you woke up tomorrow and you no longer existed in Google? So spread the love.

3: Early Adoption. It’s not too late to be an early adopter of Bing’s Bing Ads platform. There aren’t nearly as many people advertising on Bing as on Google, which is why prices are so much lower. But all the data shows Bing on the rise. Bing is increasing spending on CPC 10% faster than Google and as a result it is growing much faster. Quarter-over-quarter Bing is stealing market share from Google. Which means what is cheap today because demand is low won’t be cheap tomorrow. Hearken back to the investment model. Want to buy Google stock? Good luck. It’ll cost you $893 per share. But if you’d been smart enough to buy Google stock in 2004 you could have practically stolen it at $85 per share. So don’t wait. Bing is growing and it’s getting better all the time. It’s also gaining traction in big places. For instance, Firefow recently switched its default search engine from Google to Bing. And in the smartphone/tablet market, Apple recently announced that when it releases iOS 7 this fall, it will use Bing to power Siri’s search functions. The trajectory is promising, the time is right.

So long for now, and happy Binging.