Big News For Affiliate Marketers, or is it? – Yahoo gains 20% in the Search Market, Maybe?
FollowThere has always been a large emphasis on search marketing, often just referred to as “Search” in the Performance Marketing Industry. As such, anything that relates to how search engines are ranking certain websites, or in this case – where consumers are conducting their searches is worth taking a look at.
As part of the update from Firefox 33 to Firefox 34, users had their default search engine switched overnight from Google in FF 33, to Yahoo in FF 34.
What Does this Mean for Performance Marketing?
A major shift in market share (Yahoo Search is powered by Bing) would have huge implications for the Performance Marketing Industry.
- Affiliates and Publishers would need to analyze traffic patters and possibly put more of their efforts and budget into Bing when competing in the competitive Paid Search market.
- Retailers would need to monitor results from Bing much more closely, as volume will no doubt pick up.
- Vendors would need to adjust monitoring according.
This is a 5 year deal, so we asked several experts in the Performance Marketing industry to weigh in.
PMA Corporate Member Savings.com explains how the change won’t have any large material impact.
It won’t have a material impact on allocation of paid search spend as it doesn’t drastically alter share of the Bing/Yahoo marketplace. That said it certainly indicates Yahoo wants to get back into the search technology game and have more control over their destiny in this respect. It’s a continuation of what we saw with the launch of Yahoo Gemini where they grabbed back control of search on mobile and tablet devices.
Outsourced PPC Consulting firm, and PMA Corporate Member RhinoFish Media weighs in with insight on how the numbers may be temporary, with an easy shift back by users of the FireFox browser.
Three times almost nothing is still almost nothing. FF is nearly absent from the mobile revolution, and a shrinking base on desktops, plus it’s very easy to switch away from the default. This is temporary and miniscule, we’re expecting it to be on the order of magnitude of noise level via Bing Ads, but great to see Y fighting. By the way, FireFox is the browser I use, I love it’s device and relative org independence, unfortunately, that’ll be it’s downfall (look in your Analytics reports at Firefox Mobile traffic). As the 34 rollout matures, share numbers will move a few points, but within 60 days of that, the gains will be cut below half as users switch back. The max swell will have occurred just after the holiday season shopping peaks have passed, with the gains largely disappearing into the giant sucking sound we call Santa’s hangover.
Brian Littleton - President 2015 PMA Board of Directors
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