Think Beyond Google

As you invest in paid search, it can be all too easy to fall into a common trap: devoting all of your time to Google Adwords without thinking about other avenues. You may think to spread your focus to social media marketing and search engine optimization, without considering Bing and Yahoo ads. Here’s why that’s a mistake.

The Importance of a Well-Rounded Paid Search Strategy

There are three main reasons I can think of to invest beyond Google:

Nearly 33% of people use Yahoo and/or Bing search.

Putting all of your eggs in one basket means missing out on other viable opportunities. Putting your eggs in multiple baskets means taking advantage of many different ways to reach your target audience.

Import tools are good and getting even better, which means transferring your ads from Adwords to Bing and Yahoo is pretty easy. Plus, you don’t have to sacrifice consistency to utilize them all.

At Lead Horse, we’re big fans of testing. Testing which channels bring the highest return is most important. If you dip your feet into Bing and Yahoo and don’t see results, then by all means these are not the right places to find prospects for your business. But testing different avenues for targeting your audience can never be a bad thing; you may even find a whole new audience you hadn’t thought of before.

Bing and Yahoo

Bing and Yahoo started the year with rising search share, and have enjoyed an uptick since. Recently amending their agreement so that Yahoo has more freedom to show Gemini ads to its 500 or so million monthly users (rather than Bing ads), each search engine has devoted users you want to advertise to. Plus, Yahoo’s recent deal to be the default search engine for Firefox users means even more visibility.

Bing’s 20% search market share and Yahoo’s 12.7% share are important. When advertising with Bing, your reach could extend to Yahoo’s market as well. In the US, 1 in 5 searches are now conducted via Microsoft’s search engine. When advertising with Yahoo, you’re betting on a mobile and native advertising platform that has seen incredible success in its first year of existence.

You may also get more return for less money on these engines; lower cost-per-click can make a bigger difference than you might think. You may find your demographic uses Bing more, and save a lot of money by heavily weighing your strategy toward Bing.

Google

With 64.4% of the search market locked down, it’s obvious that you should and will advertise in Google search. With more users searching on mobile and utilizing local search, Google will remain at the top. An Adwords strategy that encompasses mobile ads and click-to-call capabilities (and tracking) will be key going forward.

Google is important for several reasons – if you want to cast a wide net, you have a large audience there to do so. Recent statistics have revealed the following:

• Google has over 30% of the digital marketing market globally
• In the US, 50% of Google’s paid search clicks are projected to be from mobile devices [be December of this year]
• An ad that appears in Google search lifts consumer top-of-mind awareness of a brand by 6.6%

Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and More

But don’t ignore social advertising, either. From Facebook, to YouTube, to Twitter’s evolving ad solutions, capturing the attention of your audience isn’t limited to search engines anymore!