Bing has been seeing an overall positive trend in the number of users and other aspects over the past year or so, but a major revision on predictions of US search ad revenue from eMarketer suggests things are as good as many thought. This report is specifically about the amount of ad revenues the major ad-selling companies are expected to see from 2011 until 2015. Prior to the revision they had expected Microsoft to earn $1.41 Billion in 2013 and $1.84 Billion in 2014. The revision now says they will only earn $660 Million in 2013 and $890 Million the following year.
This downgrade is not due to poor search numbers, however, but the higher costs Microsoft has to pay for traffic acquisition. Microsoft has been investing millions into advertising and other strategies to bring people to Bing, and that is taking a major investment. In addition, unlike Google who has a well established ad network in Adwords, Bing is still trying to attract new places to display ads which is costing them.
Despite these challenges, however, Microsoft is still expected to have their ad revenues grow by 34% this year. They also grew faster than any other ad-network through 2011 and 2012. In 2013 only Amazon is expected to grow faster, at 46.8%.
At this point Microsoft and the other ad-networks are still attempting to make up any ground they can on Google, which continues to hold a dominant edge over everyone else. Google’s ad revenue estimates grew to $14.39 Billion for this year, and it is expected to continue to grow. eMarketers estimates say that by 2015 they will earn 76% of the total ad-revenue, up from 73.8% this year.
Based on this report it seems like Bing’s ad-network might be paying out higher rates than previously expected. For sites which can qualify to display ads from the Microsoft Adcenter, it might be a smart move. You can see the full report from eMarketer HERE.
