Following the annual Bing Ads web conference, Microsoft Bing Ads has announced an extended partnership with Verizon Media. The new partnership will enable Yahoo search traffic as well as search traffic from the other Microsoft Oath platforms and partners to be exclusively served by Microsoft Bing Ads. Bing Ads, Yahoo, and AOL will be accessible under the Microsoft Bing Ads umbrella and managed in the Bing platform.
Back in 2015, when Microsoft and Yahoo last renegotiated its advertising partnership, Yahoo was looking to build its own platform (Gemini) and retained the right to serve up to 49% of search ads on its properties through Gemini, with the remaining 51% being served through Bing Ads. As part of this new partnership, all ads will be served through Bing. In addition, Microsoft will be introducing new ad placements on MSN, Oath’s ad platform’s native marketplace will have exclusive access to the new MSN inventory. This means that the Microsoft Audience Network (MSAN) for native ads will gain access to the inventory that the Verizon Media platforms offer, indicating that advertisers will be able to reach an expanded Microsoft Audience Network.
According to Bing Ads this partnership will benefit advertisers with an increase in click share and volume share. Kya Sainsbury-Carter, VP of global partner service for ad sales at Microsoft, said;
“While exact results will vary by client, Bing Ads users should closely monitor their budgets to ensure they are ready to capture these potential increases in click volume”
Microsoft said it estimates that this could lead to an increase in clicks of 10 to 15 percent in the U.S.
The worldwide transition will take place by the end of March 2019, ending with 100 percent of Verizon Media’s search volume served exclusively by Bing Ads.
What should advertisers know about the transition:
- Advertisers currently running campaigns on Oath Ad Platforms should continue to do so throughout the transition to avoid losing traffic. In the meantime, Microsoft recommends running parallel campaigns in Bing Ads to captivate the traffic and spend shifts.
- Keep budgets in the Oath Ad Platform during transition time, to avoid loss of search volume.
- Start copying the ads from the Oath Ad Platforms and upload them to Bing, with a 10 percent budget increase as a cushion. Ads will continue to serve on both platforms, so closely monitor traffic, budgets as well as bids.
