New Facebook Graph Search could change Fortunes of Bing Advertisers
Facebook and Bing have joined hands to introduce the new Graph Search feature for Facebook members. This feature has the potential of changing the fortunes of Bing advertisers for the better thanks to improved search results and better integration of data between both these giants.
Microsoft has over time changed the name of its Live Search feature in Facebook to Bing as well as made several improvements to better integrate social content with web results. With Facebook now handling around one billion queries each day, there certainly is a huge potential for Bing advertisers to en-cash on this huge volume of queries.
On the other hand, currently web searches do not present an impressive figure on these voluminous Facebook queries. In fact, Bing Ads receive merely 0.13 percent of clicks through Facebook in the United States. In addition, Facebook only achieves 0.02 percent in paid search clicks, which places it in the same category as Blekko.
However, with the new Graph Search in place, users would be able to view far better results to their queries that are much better related than ever before. The new Bing search results seem to have evicted squatters from their search results and hence help users to quickly opt for a web search instead of viewing a clutter of data. Upon conducting a web search via the new Graph Search, users will also be able to view a new layout that is easier on the eyes and with integrated Facebook features such as display of related Facebook pages and Share and Like counts thanks to the new SERP.
All this could very well result in far more Bing searches through Facebook, which in turn could also result in higher search ad clicks. There are already indications that point to an increase in clicks on Bing ads through Facebook. Considering that Facebook has only released the Graph Search feature to a small percentage of their user base, there is certainly a huge potential that awaits Bing advertisers when this feature is available to all users.
Only time will tell if the new Facebook Garph Search can bring in a substantial amount of clicks for Bing advertisers, although initial results do seem to be promising. However, advertisers will also need to ensure that their pages contain lots of Likes, which can be done by ensuring continuation of Facebook ad formats that they currently run.
