Bing, one of the newest search engines on the block powered by Microsoft, had a great opening with a strong marketing campaign, but lately has been declining on the number of new users to the search engine.
According to stats recently released from a study performed by Chitika, an online ad network, traffic from August through the first half of October appears to show that the number of users coming through Microsoft’s search engine has declined much more quickly than they were expecting for this time of year. Over 8% of search engine users and 6.7% of search traffic came from Bing in August 2009. Since August, Microsoft’s share of impressions has dropped to 5.44%, and the user share has decreased to 6.28%.
Here are some stats released in Chitika’s report:
Search Share: Impressions
August September October
Google 81.80% 84.19% 84.99%
Yahoo! 9.08% 7.73% 7.26%
Bing 6.76% 5.76% 5.44%
(Based on a sample of 579,555,134 impressions across the Chitika network)
Search Share: Unique Users
August September October
Google 79.86% 82.87% 83.82%
Yahoo! 9.36% 8.03% 7.42%
Bing 8.24% 6.56% 6.25%
(Based on a sample of 273,537,852 users across the Chitika network)
There are several reasons why this may be happening, but the overall reason would be that Microsoft simply isn’t doing much to help early adopters develop a strong desire to tell later adopters Bing. There is a lot of marketing going on to get people to check out Bing, but in order for the interest to grow, you have to constantly point out new features to help keep a new product from becoming an “old hat”.
With Google, they have created several videos on YouTube about the different features that currently exist with their different products, and also videos that speak of things to come. This helps to keep a sense of excitement and curiosity around their brand. Just when you are getting tired of the “same old thing” from Google, the water cooler gossip starts up agai about a new technology that Google is unveiling that a friend, of a friend, of a friend happened to mention to you. People flock to the internet checking out websites, and blogs to find out what part of the rumors are true, and what is purely fiction. Finally, Google admits to the world their “secret” technology, and everyone is rushing to be one of the lucky chosen few to adorn the lofty and envious title – Google beta tester. From there, the popularity of the new technology explodes on Twitter, and Facebook, and the whole process starts all over again.
Microsoft could learn a thing or two about “perpetual marketing” from Google.