Yahoo-Bing Partner Network Continues To Increase Its Market Share

According to a report by advertising technology firm IgnitionOne, the first quarter of 2015 was a strong period for the U.S. paid search market. The year-over-year growth of 26 percent marks the highest increase in three years and the third-highest rate since the company began recording performance data.

IgnitionOne manages more than $1.5 billion in digital spend and tracks over $30 billion in revenue for its customers, and the report shows that Bing Ads continued to grow among advertisers on the IgnitionOne platform. Among IgnitionOne’s clients, the Yahoo-Bing Partner Network grew in market share for the third sequential quarter, reaching 26.9 percent in the U.S. during Q1, compared with Google’s 73.1 percent.

The advertising technology firm cites the improving U.S. economy and rising cost-per-click (CPC) in mobile for the strong growth in the past two quarters, with spending on smartphones increasing by 81 percent from Q1 2014.

Overall impressions were down 20 percent for the quarter, due to the fact that more of IgnitionOne’s customers pulled out of the Google Partner Network. Impressions from the search partner network dropped by 46 percent, clicks were down 25 percent and ad spend fell by 11 percent. Conversely, participation on the Yahoo-Bing Partner Network has been increasing, as impressions rose 46 percent and spend was up 30 percent year-over-year. IgnitionOne explains that the flexibility of being able to exclude poor performing partner sites on the Yahoo-Bing Partner Network allows for greater efficiency, unlike with Google, which is an all or nothing opt-in.

Although the numbers aren’t massive, the three consecutive quarters of growth in market share by Bing Ads is certainly noteworthy. Q1 marks the highest spend share that Bing Ads has experienced since the Yahoo-Bing Network formed in 2010, and the lowest share for Google among IgnitionOne customers since 2008.

Overall, CPCs rose 21 percent year-over-year, with Google CPCs up 23 percent and Bing Ads up 15 percent. IgnitionOne explains that a change in Google’s algorithm last September also led to higher CPCs. Google’s change enforces close variant matching to all exact and phrase-match keywords, as well as showing ads for queries that are considered to be plurals, misspellings, or close variants of their exact and phrase-match keywords.

In comparison to the previous quarter, U.S. paid search metrics appear positive. Even when being compared to a strong holiday season, spend rose 10 percent quarter-over-quarter with CPCs up 21 percent and eCPM (effective cost per thousand impressions) up 49 percent.

Dave Ragals, global managing director of Search at IgnitionOne, explains that the partner networks have become the differentiators, with marketers continuing to pull out of the Google Partner Network to use the Yahoo-Bing Partner Network based on the ability to choose the partners to advertise on and to block specific domains in their campaigns.