Bing a success...so far

Bing, the much hyped new search engine developed by MSN has so far lived up to its tremendous and expansive marketing campaigns. Microsoft might have finally learned that when web site users think of online search, MSN is not top of mind. It is still a distant third in the search engine battle (Google, Yahoo, and then MSN, now Bing).

However, some of the new search features of Bing are quite fun to use. The importance for my online marketing is that Bing is becoming a much effective online marketing tool. We are seeing steady and profitable increases in conversion rates and click through rates for Pay Per Click campaigns from MSN since it morphed into Bing. Accounts with Pay Per Click budgets on MSN that were never reached are now maxing out at the mid month point. Conversions are up as well but only time will tell the overall conversion rates and ROI for our campaigns.

While it is too early to tell about how effective Bing will be against Google's dominant market share, we are seeing very nice returns from the new launch. Once the honeymoon effect of their marketing expenditures tails off, we will keep an eye out on this new/not new search engine.