Paid ads are the major sources of revenue for any search engine. Microsoft Bing seems to be binging northwards as the number of paid ads clicks rose by almost 8% in a week after launch of search engine as per Wall Street Journal. If this trend continues Microsoft will be able to lure more and more advertisers and will be able to generate more revenue. As of now Google holds more than 76% share of Ads revenue followed by Yahoo. Microsoft had very less revenue from the ad market as its penetration in the search market is less than 7% .
As more and more users are trying out Bing it seems that Bing may be able to grab some loyal users and more users meaning more ads per click revenue. It seems that Microsoft strategy is to attract more users who are likely to click the ads available on the search page. Bing most fascinating features are Travel and Shopping, Users which are searching for Travel and Shopping deals will easily click on the relevant ads displayed with the search result thus boosting Microsoft profit.
Has Microsoft struck the right chord focusing on Travel and Shopping features, Will it be able to punch a hole in Google/ Yahoo pockets?
At the end of the day Microsoft should not forget that they are marketing Bing as a search/decision engine and not a Travel/Shopping site and they need to add some serious punch to their search capabilities to compete with Yahoo and Google in the longterm. In the shortterm though they seem to be striking the right note both with users and advertisers.
