Is Bing Dead?

When it comes to search, we all know that Google is the King of Jungle, globally as well as in the US. Which is, perhaps why, as a good rule of thumb, most search marketers set aside 20% of their search budget for Bing. In terms of strategy, they replicate everything they are doing on Google to Bing or if they don’t have that 20% extra budget, they ignore Bing completely.

Google currently has 88.6% marketshare of the search category globally, Bing following a distant second with 6.01%, Yahoo following at 4.09% and DuckDuckGo, a relevant and rapidly growing player at close to 1%. The remaining share is broken up between MSN and Baidu. Google started in 1997 and since then has been fine-tuning its search algorithm on a regular basis. Today, thanks to its expansion into IOT (Internet of Things) products it also offers seamless integration of its search function with other Google Products such as Google Home. Even before IOT, Google offered its search features in Google Maps and YouTube, both of whom have become quasi search engines in their own right.

Google’s dominance of search is no surprise. Google’s main business is ‘search’. In fact, in many ways, it keeps the lights on for all the other Google businesses as well as funds future-facing initiatives such as the driverless car. Bing, on the other hand, like LinkedIn and Skype are the additional or peripheral features that Microsoft offers. It is far from being Microsoft’s core offering. Bing is Microsoft’s way of having its fingers in the search business but it is far from serving as a critical business. Which means that when it comes to investing in making Bing robust, updating its algorithm on a regular basis and ensuring that it has all the bells and whistles that will make it a true competitor of Google, Bing falls short. This philosophy also reflects in Microsoft’s other businesses. For e.g. even though Skype was an innovator in Video IP (in fact it was regularly featured on The Oprah Show), it now lags behind as a robust product versus other products that have integrated video IP into their offering. Whatsapp and Facebook Messenger are two examples of services that are as good, if not better than Skype. LinkedIn is another example — though it continues to be one of the most expensive social channels to advertise on, it is far from being a true competitor to Facebook, Instagram or even, Twitter. Bing has definitely suffered thanks to this philosophy, though it brands itself as a search engine that delivers ‘real-world contextual results’ and even powers Yahoo’s searches but you may have never known that.

Which brings us to the question: Does Bing even matter when it comes to your search strategy? Well, for that we will have to better understand Bing and what it brings to the table. While experimenting with both search engines, it has been found that Google was better with specific search results. The more specific and detailed the search, the more Google will be able to deep dive and find the answer. However, Bing is still a very relevant and large piece of desktop search, coming in between 24 and 30%. It also has the 2nd largest market share in the US and according to Alexa the analytics site, it is still one of the 50 most visited sites globally.

Many users are happy with Bing being their default search engine, especially on desktops, whether it is at office or at home. Research shows that Google and Bing actually reach out to different audiences. Google is more male, younger and yuppier. Surprisingly, the Bing user is actually more educated and is more likely to be an older woman with an annual household income of $100,000. Think of it as the Pinterest user — older, female and very comfortable with the desktop. That explains the higher marketshare of Bing on Desktop compared to Mobile.

Another difference? While Google flaunts itself like the peacock, sure to let everyone know when it is around, Bing is the Okapi, silently working in the background and rarely to be seen. Few people know that till recently all Apple phones were empowered with Bing search. All Amazon and Amazon echo products are empowered with Bing Search. Yahoo search is empowered by Bing and of course all Microsoft products now have ‘Cortana’, Microsoft’s own version of a digital assistant. Cortana, is, powered by Bing!

Bing’s approach is “Desktop first”, which is why, for the user it is one of the most visually appealing search experiences. I love its backgrounds, its visual “wow!” and the three icons it offers: camera, magnifying glass and a microphone — testament to the fact that there are more than one way to search for something. Bing actually does a better job of images and video search by using a combination of “algorithm signals” and “human editors”, who take into account both live search activity as well as real-time news events.

I asked my 11-year-old daughter what she likes about Bing and she said, “it’s the only search engine that pays you to search”. Did you know that? Like literally pay you to search? Has that made her use Bing more as a search engine? Not really, but its a pretty cool fact that not many people know.

In many ways Bing is a lot more objective when it comes to delivering search results, but Google probably knows me better. Between Gmail, Google Maps, YouTube and Google Search on every device, especially mobile — Google has a very clear understanding of my constantly evolving digital avatar. Which also means that in many ways, Google is delivering the results that ‘I want to see’ or that “I should see’ instead of what are overall ‘good’ search results. Paid ads are also, usually cheaper on Bing rather than Google.

Therefore, when it comes to a brand’s search strategy it is very very important to understand intent and the kind of audience one is trying to reach. Just like, for a brand, Pinterest might make more sense versus Instagram; similarly there will be times when Bing will be able to deliver better results than Google. It is, therefore, important to look at the similarities as well as the differences that each search engine brings to the table to enrich a brand’s search strategy.

Google’s search dominance is both a blessing and a curse, with little control in the brand and the end consumer’s hand. This may explain the sudden rise of DuckDuckGo, which, as I mentioned is steadily growing its 1% global market share. An insignificant number compared to Google but it is interesting how quickly it has grown in the past couple of years. Google has some tough competition today. YouTube is becoming the search engine of choice for Gen Z. Amazon, which started off as a shopping portal, is becoming a search engine in its own right and so is Facebook. Facebook currently sees over 1.5 billion searches everyday with over 600 million users visiting business pages daily on its site. It’s a smaller number compared to Google’s 3.5 billion daily searches but at 1.5 billion, it is currently at 50% of Google’s search share.

Search is constantly evolving. I have always looked at it as marketer’s gold. It is where the intent of the potential consumer is so clearly spelt out. As more and more consumers look for search in the ecosystems they are comfortable living in, whether that be Facebook, Amazon, DuckDuckGo or Bing, its time for Google to sit up and take notice. Search will change even faster with our digital assistants and it’s definitely a technology I am excited to keep a watch on.

Join me every week, as we navigate these ever-changing waters to make sense of this ‘always-on’ consumer and the technologies that define their everyday. I will be bringing you insights from some of the sharpest global minds in the industry as well as in academia. And do join the conversation.

Until next week

Anika

A seasoned Advertising and Digital expert, Anika has worked across countries and continents and spoken at companies such as Google and universities such as NYU. She is currently Professor of Business at NYU’s Stern School of Business teaching Social Media, Digital Marketing, Mobile Marketing and Digital Strategy. She writes a weekly column called #mobilewatch for Adage. Anika calls the column a playground for all things digital with an emphasis on mobile and emerging technologies. Follow Anika on twitter @anikadas or on Medium.

©AnikaSharma. No part of this article can be used without explicit permission. All rights reserved.

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