Will The MSN and Yahoo Union Affect Search?

29.07.2009 Posted in Search

The recent news of the amalgamation of MSN and Yahoo should be perceived as a positive step for the search industry.

The cold war effect and competitive innovation will benefit everyone from the searcher to the advertiser. We can anticipate improvements in the usability of the advertising interface and the development of applications to ease and encourage the use of the Bing / Yahoo search network. Advertisers will be tempted by the agency kick backs and the potential API savings. The companies that are still running campaigns in-house will benefit from cheaper traffic in the short term; however market competition and the efficiency saving agencies can offer their clients would put paid to that in a matter of months.

Where the major benefit will be seen is in improved use of time, and with that commitment and purpose.

To effectively run a PPC campaign properly is massively labour intensive. Managing and bidding individually on thousands of long tail keywords, evolving keyword and ad copy performance in real time, adapting to competitor changes and constantly managing the various CPAs on various products make the management of a well structured campaign like juggling a thousand balls on a windy day. Spreading one’s time across platforms has added another dimension to the challenge. The union of these two advertising environments will ensure that they can now justify the time and commitment from their campaign manager. Time will therefore be divided probably around Pareto’s law in the short term but this is better than - for many - the afterthought it was before.

The news and excitement stirred up from the Bing rebrand will see the advertising commitment grow through these mediums - spend will only ever increase if the users follow.