bing cashback network

In August 2009, Bing gained 0.4% of the domestic search market (Google: -0.1%, Yahoo!: 0.0%).

Compared to August 2008, Microsoft’s search volume grew by 31.9% (Google: +21.6%, Yahoo: +16.8%).

You can get all the numbers over at Techcrunch.

Thecrowdpeople.com explain 5 features that give bing an advantage over Google.

Here is a quick summary:

1. The bing travel insight: bing offers both airfare deals and so-called farecast technology. Bing’s farecast technology will tell you whether its more likely that the ticket you were looking for is going to be more or less expensive over time
2. Bing cashback. Well bing cashback definitely does attract price-savvy consumers. And if you use bing anyway, it might save you a good amount of money.
3. The visual search function. So far this innovative feature is US-only. Try it and look for i.e. digital cameras, dog breeds or NFL players.
4. BingTweets. I didnt even know this feature existed. It seems like it blends Twitter Trends and Bing Insights into a combined search where you get search results from both ends. Sounds pretty cool – has anyone ever tried that? Tell me your opinion!
5. The enhanced search: enhanced view and preview windows. Well I havent used the preview windows so far and to be honest I dont see where to find them on bing. The enhanced view on Wikipedia could come in helpful though.

So long,

Frederik

Image by Russ Morris

Now here are the real numbers (courtesy of compete.com):

Top 10 most visited retailers from bing cashback and the change in traffic due to the back to school campaign:

Top 10 retailers with the largest growth and the cashback rate they offered during bing’s campaign:

And finally the conversion rate during the bing cashback back to school promotion compared the online shop’s general conversion rate:

Thanks to Debra Miller who let me use this!

Jason Tabeling from searchenginewatch.com shares some experiences he had with his clients. Since the launch of bing, cost per click (cpc) rose substantially. This seems to be a result of the buzz that came with the launch of bing: it attracted more advertisers and thus increased the competition for keywords.

On the other hand, cost per order (cpo) have decreased dramatically (-32% in retail) or are stable despite the increase in cpc (+1% in financial services). Jason points out that bing cashback attracts consumers looking to save money. This would increase the conversion rate even for those advertisers who dont offer bing cashback (but advertise via sponsored links on the regular bing).

Joe Wilcox talks about Microsoft’s new product launches (Bing, Xbox, Windows Live, Windows Mobile, Windows 7 and Zune) and Microsoft’s need to market a lifestyle. Its a great review and analysis of how Microsoft’s marketing did versus their competitors. Check it out.

I think its about time that bing cashback advertisers start to discuss and share their experiences. So please join the bing cashback groups on linkedin and facebook. I would also like to start collecting some opinions and experiences with bing cashback and maybe put together a case study. If anybody is interested in sharing their experiences (and promoting their online store on this blog), contact me.

Frederik

Debra Miller from Compete.com just posted some interesting numbers on Microsoft Bing’s recent “back to school” promotion.

Here’s a quick review:

• During the back to school promotion, traffic to bing cashback increased more than 30%
• hp.com and eastbay.com managed to climb into the top 10 list of retailers most visited directly from bing. Eastbay offered a staggering 50% cashback rate to get there.
• Retailers experienced up to 995% more traffic (that is ten times the original traffic; barnesandnoble.com)

• Additionally, the higher cashback rates increased the conversion rates. hp.com increased experienced a cashback conversion rate of 9% – compared to a general conversion rate of 1%.
• For the 50% cashback rate, eastbay.com got rewareded with a 22% conversion rate.

The great success of this campaign gives a hint that a bad economy and tight budgets might help Microsoft’s bing cashback to continue its growth. Shoppers are definitely willing to invest some time into searching and comparing and ultimately reward the retailers for sharing the advertising expenses – instead of bombarding the consumer with “useless” interruptive ads.

So long,
Frederik

How to get highest rates on bing cashback

People over at slickdeals.net have put together a list of direct links and keywords that will get you the maximum cashback rate for a specific online shop.

For example: If you visit a particular online store via bing cashback’s general shopping store portal you get a relatively low rate. For the Walmart online shop, you get "2-5%". Now if you enter a specific keyword or enter the online shop via a specific bing cashback link, you will get a much higher cashback rate – in this case 10%.

Have fun shopping!

US: Bing (and Microsoft’s other search sites) had a combined market share of 8.9% in July 2009. Together with Yahoo’s market share, Microsoft would account for close to one third of the search market (28.2%).

International: It seems like bing has a hard time on the international search market. Bing accounted for only 3.52% of the overall searches (including Microsoft live search and MSN). We will see what happens when bing takes over the Yahoo! searches.

Mark McGuire, currently founding alice.com, former founder of jellyfish.com

Mark points out that bing cashback /microsoft live cashback works because it rewards the end consumer for sharing his or her opinion with the advertiser (that is what happens when you get an ad based on what you searched for – you tell the advertisers what you’re interested in). Google sells its users thoughts to the advertisers without letting the users participate.

Now what he feels is necessary is that advertisers start to really compete for the users attention on bing cashback. They see it works, they start to spend more money (effectively they lower the price by giving more money to microsoft and the end-customer) and thus they attract even more customers.

Mark currently works on www.Alice.com a website that offers automated shopping services for household goods (and automated use of coupons!). A great website that anybody living in the US should check out. Good luck, Mark!

The guys from SEO roundtable

It seems like the author (and I was unfortunately not able to find out who actually posted this one, sorry) found that bing cashback creates a great headache for Microsoft’s support teams. The author therefore wonders whether bing cashback actually brings in enough money to make up for the bugs and issues such a complex system produces (remember, Microsoft splits the advertising revenue with the end-customer).

Robert Lockhard from eHarbor eCommerce blog

Robert thinks that bing’s recent success is good for e-commerce because the increased competition will encourage Google and Microsoft to introduce new and better services. He also advises his readers to use the bing cashback function if they are looking for ways to expand their business.

So long for today,

Frederik

On May 15th, Nielsen came out with some numbers on bing cashback’s market share in the “shopping search” market. Bing cashback grew with an impressive rate of 615% over the year. On the other hand, this growth applied on a small level: bing cashback’s market share was only 8% (in the study it is still called MSN/Windows Live Shopping Search).

Also, as ars technica points out, Live cashback launched in May 2008 – so the number of searches in May 2008 was naturally very low. And the growth in percentage points therefore looks amazing.

One point raised by Nielsen is interesting though: bing cashback had only an 8% share of the searches, but a 12% of the referred traffic for e-commerce retailers. That means that its click-trough-rate, its effectiveness, is higher than that of the competition.

One last warning: don’t mix these numbers up with a general comparison of the bing search engine and Google. The shopping-specific searches only make up for about 2 percent of the search market. However, those two percent are likely to attract much more advertising spending than an average search.

So long,

Frederik