Back in July, we looked at how often Bing users clicked on ads when compared to Google and Yahoo! users. Bing users showed a 50% higher ad click rate than Googlers, so at the time our preliminary conclusion was that Bing’s success was being driven in a big part by Microsoft’s huge, expensive advertising blitz.
Now that December is upon us, and Bing keeps showing its ability to push Google from a technology standpoint, we decided to revisit and see how the numbers were looking. As it turns out, Bing users are still clicking on ads at a prodigious rate – in fact, the CTR of users who come to the Chitika network via Bing is over 75% higher than those who come from Google.
Now, it must be mentioned that Bing is still a distant third place in terms of traffic sent – Google dominates with 84% of search traffic, followed by Yahoo! at 7.40%, and Bing holding at 5.75% (AOL and Ask both have just over 1% of search traffic coming into the Chitika network). However, all things being considered the same, driving one Bing user (or AOL or Ask user) to your site can be more valuable than driving one Google user.
The Raw Numbers:
| Search Engine | Ad Clicks | Impressions | Ad CTR | % of Search | CTR Vs. Google |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AOL | 42,597 | 1,706,858 | 2.50% | 1.27% | 253.56% |
| Ask | 34,437 | 1,958,490 | 1.76% | 1.45% | 178.65% |
| Bing | 134,536 | 7,741,724 | 1.74% | 5.75% | 176.57% |
| 1,115,452 | 113,332,938 | 0.98% | 84.13% | 100% | |
| Yahoo! | 136,506 | 9,972,035 | 1.37% | 7.40% | 139.08% |
Numbers are based on a sample of traffic from the Chitika advertising network.
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I think that hypothesis is pretty much it. People getting their first Windows computer, which is of course bundled with IE, which of course has Bing as the default search engine. I suspect after Christmas, Bing will have a surge in traffic, but as the new computer owners become more knowledgeable, they will migrate to Firefox and Google. The cycle will probably repeat again next year as well.
yeah.. bing traffic resulting great convert, hope will last long :p
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The only problem with this stat is all of other search engines combined only makes up 16% of total searches. So what if their conversion is higher, there’s not enough of them to matter.
The stats show that the more popular the search engine the less likely that a user will click on the ad. I don’t see how one can say from these stats that more technical web savvy users use Google and less technical ones do not. I consider myself fairly technical, work in IT, am an electrical engineer (I am currently converting my regular laptop into a touch screen; lots of electronics in doing that), and I actually prefer Bing and Yahoo over Google. I started using Bing in June after years of being a diehard Googler and sometimes Yahooligan. Now Bing is my primary search for all but YouTube stuff. To each his or her own.
I also see that my goal convert higher when it comes to Bing traffic these days.
I get more click through with Bing and Yahoo. I do not get much traffic from AOL so I really can not compare. A lot of it depends on the page that they arrive at (keywords).
The more technical pages are usually Google. The stories and news items seem to get more traffic from Yahoo.
really an useful insight about ad clicks. Thank you.
Base on their statistics, its really competitive,in each group.As what i know some people used Bing in a past few months. I hope it work so well..
https://chitika.com/publishers.php?refid=ruthie29
I think the first two comments pretty much summed it up: Inexperienced users, or new computer owners tend to click on ads, or will use the default browser (IE) that came bundled with their machines.
Interesting insightful information about ad stuff. cool.
I agree with Scott but I think that 50% is a little much for webmasters checking their rankings.
You are right, Sava. Webmasters do not constitute 50% of the internet traffic. They click more then regular users, but seen from the big picture, it is just a drop in the Ocean. That said, Bing is relativley new, It doesn’t give that many results when you do a search, so users perhaps click on ads out of desperation 🙂
Is it not simply because Google may have more advertisers in each auction? More ad density per query – Google may show 8 impressions for a query while Yahoo may show 5. If each received one click for that query, then Google’s ad CTR is 1/8= 12.5% and Yahoo’s is 1/5=20%.
my traffic most from Google，Other search growth, is a good news,After all, there is competition, beneficial development.
That’s very interesting. Makes me want to optimize for BING more than ever. 🙂
I just wish that Chitika would add other world parts to their target market as I know that places like UK, AU and Gulf states have a lot of potential regarding buying consumable electronics, travel and aviation services.
At the end of the day, whether it’s purely coincidental or not, traffics from Bing is all that matters for our ultimate conversions =)
bad for me.. my traffic are all google, will try to rank in bing and aol as well.
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No one has brought up the main reason I click on ads. When I visit a site and find the content presented useful I always click on an ad. Obviously if the site is showing ads they are getting paid by their advertisers, probably on a per click basis. So I click to pay the site for the useful info they provided. Effectively transferring money from the advertiser to the site. Yes, the advertiser is getting the short end of the stick, but until there is an efficient and widely used micro-payment system, this will have to do.
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