New data indicates that small businesses are diversifying their search engine marketing campaigns outside of Google – and Bing seems to be reaping the rewards.
Webvisible, a local interactive advertising firm, reported that small businesses have dramatically expanded their search engine marketing spend since quarter three of 2008. The survey of 25,000 companies with less than 200 employees also showed that out of Bing is the search engine that has seen the largest benefit from this increased interest.
Kevin Ryan, CMO for WebVisible, said that Microsoft’s aggressive promotional campaign seems to have paid off in securing market share from Google.
“No expected this to happen when they came into the game just six months ago” he said. “I’m sure people are wondering if Bing’s success will last beyond its huge media buy.”
“Once Bing stops spending that kind of money to get in front of local advertisers, [small businesses] may forget about [it].”
As well as purchasing a greater number of keywords for PPC and SEO purposes, smaller businesses are increasing their overall budgets. The average small business is reported as purchasing 30% more keywords in Q3 2009 than in Q3 2008. They also dedicated an average of $1,658 to search ads – an increase of 91% from 2008.
The WebVisible survey also reported that Click-through rates for PPC adverts were up year over year for all search engines. Bing saw an increase of 76 percent from the performance of its former incarnation as Microsoft Live Search, whilst Google saw an increase of 52%.
Small businesses may be attracted to Google alternatives because of both the competition for advertisement on the search engine, and the subsequent price of PPC advertising through its content network. The Webvisible survey reports that Google’s cost per click was 14 percent higher on average than last year, and that it was 30% more expensive than Yahoo or Bing.
Related posts:
