Report: Bing adding little to Microsoft ad dollars so far

Bing may be catching on as a new search engine, but it has yet to generate growth in ad dollars for Microsoft, according to a report released Tuesday.

Microsoft's share of search engine ad spending for the second quarter stayed flat at less than 6 percent, according to the report by research firm SearchIgnite. That's the same level it's been for the past several years.

"Microsoft appears to be focusing its efforts on driving consumer interest and capturing increased search query share," said Roger Barnette, president of SearchIgnite. "We have not yet seen this translate into more paid search advertising dollars for Microsoft, although typically consumer adoption precedes advertiser adoption."

Meanwhile, Microsoft's one-time acquisition target Yahoo lost ground in the second quarter, with only 17 percent of the market. But top dog Google continued to rise, grabbing a 77 percent market share for search engine ad spending.

(Credit: SearchIgnite)

However, don't count out Bing just yet. The report noted that research groups have tracked Bing's share of the search query market growing since its launch last month. Ad spending typically lags behind search queries. If consumer interest continues, Bing could enjoy a boost in ad dollars for the third quarter.

Overall, the market for search engine ad spending flourished in the second quarter. The report noted that retail firms spent 36 percent more on paid search engines than in 2008's second quarter. Spending just for the month of June shot up 55 percent from June 2008.

(Credit: SearchIgnite)

"We've seen very strong paid search spend from retailers for the last several quarters," said Barnette, "a trend that can be attributed to an increase in retailers' promotional activity as they turn to heavy discounting and sales to drive purchases."

For this latest report, SearchIgnite tracked 500 marketers using Google, Yahoo, and MSN/Bing for the quarter ended June 30.

[monkeyfun14]

Well considering they've only gained a point of marketshare so far how much of a gain in ad clicks were you expecting?

[eltoro2827]

true that

[HlLLARY CLITON]

The real story here is how Yahoo dropped to the basement

[TheDiplomat78]

The more I think about Bing the more I think that this has nothing to do with Google in the short term.

IMHO, Microsoft's Bing was built to force Yahoo into a position to be bought out by Microsoft. Then after Microsoft spends a year consolidation their services they will launch an all out attack on Google.

Microsoft bid for Yahoo was $31 per share, a deal potentially worth $45 billion. Since then Yahoo stock has dropped more than 12 dollars a share. Now with Bing who knows what the second half will look like for Yahoo. I would predict that by the end of the year Microsoft will make another bid for Yahoo. Then Google will need to be worried!

[t8]

Let Microsoft buy Yahoo.
Then all the competition apples will be in one basket and more vulnerable.

[titson]

This is way too soon to write about..... looks like CNET had nothing better to talk about

[Super2online]

I think you can safely say that ad revenue will materialize once they gain another 5-10 percent in market share. There's no point spending advertising dollars on a mostly empty theater.

[shmariam]

It's just little more than a month since Bing came to being. Its premature to talk about the revenue that will add to the bottom line. This will a good six month or so to pass a judgement.

[DrtyDogg]

while this is not good, it really isn't bad either. It is early in Bings life, just as C|Net and all have been watching to see what traffic bing will so to have advertisers. I for one would not drop a huge chunk of ad dollars on an "upstart" but if it showed promise it is a good idea to have a relationship with them in the future.

[vextra]

This news comes as no surprise and is largely Microsoft's fault, they won't accept ad revenue from anyone using an Apple/mac. They purposely designed their adcenter website so it is not compatible with a browser from a mac so they could reject all macintosh users. Alot of the online marketers have switched over to macs and bing is not able to do business with them. Just another blunder from microsoft shooting themselves in the foot.

[t8]

Microsoft proprietary crap is one of the bid reasons for avoiding them. Sony is like that too.

[monkeyfun14]

What the hell are you talking about?