If you’re investing in paid search, you’re investing in Google for sure. But there are other options. This means search marketers have to “stop treating the Yahoo Bing Network like the red-headed stepchild.” (Jonathan Long, founder and chief executive (CEO) of Market Domination Media.) The latest numbers from comScore on the Bing audience are available – and the stats just might surprise you. For example, 72 percent of the business and finance searchers on the Yahoo Bing Network are not found on Google – that’s 21 million people you don’t want to be missing in finance alone.
What else are you missing? Let’s take a closer look at the comScore data.
Demographics for the Yahoo Bing Network
In the U.S., Yahoo and Bing searchers make up 29 percent of the search marketplace. Solid. But the next question becomes – who are these folks? This audience is not the Google audience – they spend more money online and they tend to be a bit older.
According to a recent comScore audience study, Yahoo Bing Network users skew toward:
- College graduates and graduate school students
- Mature age group of those 35+
- Slightly more women than men
- Households with children
- Households with incomes more than $75,000
Many searchers on Bing and Yahoo start off where each company has strong online presence. Think Yahoo Finance and MSN Money for finance searches; or Bing travel searches. Add in Hotmail, Outlook.com, and Yahoo Mail and the audience picture starts to fill out.
Interestingly enough, 70 percent of mobile searches from Bing Ads come from iOS. In addition to powering Yahoo, Bing also powers Web search on Siri on your iPhone. You might be using Bing and not knowing it.
Missing Out: Not Everyone Uses Google
Diving deeper into Bing and Yahoo’s searchers in the U.S., comScore found that in a number of verticals the audience is exclusive, meaning these are searchers not reached on Google. Turns out that not everyone uses Google in the U.S. In the U.S., 11 million of the 14 million automotive searchers on Bing Ads were exclusive on Yahoo and Bing – nearly 80 percent of the audience for that single vertical. That’s an audience that you can only find on Bing Ads.
Here is a breakdown of vertical audience on Yahoo and Bing – the orange people represent the unique audience:
Millions of searchers per vertical are exclusive to the Yahoo Bing Network. Remember that 80 percent of automotive and financial services searchers on Bing Ads are exclusive to the Yahoo Bing Network – what about the other verticals?
Let’s look at this another way:
The Yahoo Bing Network audience is clearly different than Google.
Hey There, Big Spender
In digital marketing, return on investment (ROI) is important. Better ROI could be from of lower CPCs, higher order values, a greater conversion rate, or a combination all the above. And when comparing Yahoo Bing Network searchers versus Google, there was a difference. ComScore found that Yahoo Bing Network searchers spend 6.8 percent more money online than Google searcher.
Would you say no to an additional ~7 percent? Probably not.
Yahoo and Bing Represent 29 Percent of the U.S. Searches
We’ve covered demographics and even went into vertical, but what does it look like for overall U.S. market share?
- Yahoo and Bing represent nearly a third (29 percent) of the U.S. search market
- 149 million unique searchers each month.
- 5.2 billion searches a month
Talk to Us
Hopefully that provides context about the Yahoo and Bing audience. What other facts would you like to know about Yahoo and Bing?
*The Yahoo Bing Network includes Microsoft and Yahoo Core Search sites in the U.S. ComScore Explicit Core Search (custom), June 2014. ComScore Plan Metrix, US, April 2014, custom measure created using comScore indices and duplication.