The Critically Important Role of Bing Ads in Search Marketing

It has been proven many times, that it’s imperative to label a product or a service uniquely – without any similar-sounding name, to avoid the risk of having it confused with another thing. Bing Ads which used to be called adCenter, is all too familiar with this, and sadly at that. Using a mixture of terms so familiar to each other but with different meanings and reference, could lead to advertiser confusion which in the end can be very costly both for the advertiser and the advertising platform. In the case of Bing Ads, a lot of marketers cut back on Bing Ads with most of them severing ties with Bing altogether.

Unfortunately for Bing Ads because in reality, search campaigns running on Bing Network often results to a better ROAS compared to those run on Google AdWords, but because of lower volume Bing Ads suffered a “nice to have” but “no, thank you” kind of thing, despite its edge on the ROAS.

Bing Ads’ being so different from AdWords required a lot of different processes, additional learning and unfortunately, time, which was the biggest constraints on PPC teams. And Bing Ads suffered from not having a share of the advertising pie.

The Need to be Like AdWords

Having suffered too much, Bing Ads team finally realized that they have to do something about Bing Ads being different from AdWords. They have to clear the path of such difference and make Bing Ads to be more like AdWords. And that did it for Bing Ads. The decision to be more like the other entailed a lot of cleaning up and “parity” updates, one of which is to change the rules of engagement between Google and AdWords API users. Bing Ads users were allowed to import their Google AdWords accounts directly into Bing Ads.

At the time this was being implemented, Google AdWords API terms of service prohibited commingling of AdWords data with third party services. In effect, under this term, managing Bing Ads alongside AdWords by using the API is technically illegal.

Fortunately, platforms such as Kenshoo, Marin Software and Acquisio were able to find ways to help users without violating the terms. But they were not able to deliver a platform that would allow users to compare data from both search engines and decide on a budget based on the relative success of the ads running on both platforms. Microsoft challenged Google on this. That resulted to Google agreeing to make changes that would allow commingling of data. This signals a new era of innovation for performance marketing software companies ultimately benefitting marketers tremendously. Importing campaigns into Bing Ads can only take a matter of minutes.

Parity with AdWords Extended

When Google announced of the forced migration to Enhanced Campaigns, a lot of savvy marketers were not happy because that could mean loss of profit for them knowing they will lose control over targeting.

What Bing Ads did was to replicate Google’s Enhanced Campaign’s functionality to maintain parity with Google AdWords and as an added bonus, gave advertisers the choice to migrate to enhanced campaigns or to keep the old structure intact. This is in line with Bing Ads’ belief that advertisers should have the tools and flexibility to control their spending, choose their targets, and make sure that they get the best ROI.

And this is good news for everyone because the work smaller advertisers will invest in their Google Enhanced Campaigns will be importable “as is” into Bing Ads. Advertisers with deeper pockets will be able to continue to deploy campaigns with device and carrier specific targeting. And most importantly, Bing Ads will not stop at keeping up with Google to facilitate the flow of ad spend across AdWords and Bing Ads. And additionally, they will not stop at innovating as this is the only way that they can improve their share of search budgets – by being creative and adding more value to marketers.

Grooveshark, Spotify and Pandora: Which Music Streaming Suits You Best

Music is part of everybody’s life. And now that it has become easier to have access to music online, more people are able to enjoy it. Gone are the days when one has to buy CDs and cassette tapes of their favorite singers and composers to be able to listen to their music. Today, with the internet making everything possible, some songs and music are available online free-of-charge. Several web applications have been developed to facilitate listening to music on demand at no charge. And as long as one is connected to the internet, he can listen to music online anytime, anywhere.

Grooveshark

Grooveshark is a web-based music application built for every music-loving person. Internet users are able to listen to single songs from a collection of more than 15 million songs, create and save playlists, and embed on other blogs, websites, and social media profiles using the Grooveshark Widget.

Grooveshark users can access their accounts remotely across multiple devices such as Android, jailbroken iOS, Blackberry, and HP Palm WebOS devices. Users can search and find music by artist, song, album, artist or by browsing friends’ recent activity or even through other user’s playlists. Users can listen to Genre Radio Stations of specific genres or they can populate their own station with their list of current songs. Grooveshark site can use the song list to stream similar music. Other social media accounts can be connected to Grooveshark.

Grooveshark is a subsidiary of Escape Media Group, a US-based online music streaming service. Grooveshark was founded by 3 undergraduates of the University of Florida in March 2006. The founder Sam Tarantino became the CEO while Josh Greenberg became CTO and Andres Barreto became COO. In the first two years of its existence, Grooveshark functioned as a paid downloadable music service, with content sourced from a proprietary P2P network called Sharkbyte. Users who uploaded a transacted song are paid a portion of the accounting cost for the song. Grooveshark has about 35 million users.

Spotify

Another music streaming service available online is Spotify. It provides DRM-protected content from a range of big and independent record labels such as EMI, Sony, Warner Music Group and Universal. Spotify was launched in October 2008 by a Swedish startup Spotify AB. In September 2010, Spotify recorder about 10 million users and by December 2012, total users reached 20 million.

Users can browse music by artist, record label, album, genre or playlist. Direct search is another way to browse or access music. Users who register are given a 6-month free trial period and users can listen to an unlimited amount of music supported by visual and radio-style advertising. 

Pandora

Pandora was started back in 2000, when Tim Westergren’s Music Genome Project began. This is the most comprehensive analysis of music ever undertaken. Tim Westergren founded Pandora and the Music Genome project, and he is now Chief Strategy Officer. Users are able to explore the vast collection of music by just dropping the name of the user’s favorite song, artist or genre into Pandora and the Music Genome Project will give it a go, scanning its entire library of analyzed music to find songs or music similar to what the users like.

Pandora allows users to create up to 100 “unique stations”. The Music Genome Project was founded by music lovers and musicians by heart and soul. The project aims to help users connect with the music they love. According to Statistic Brain, Pandora has 80 million registered users

Among the 3 music streaming apps, Pandora seems to be leading the race. Unfortunately, Pandora is currently in a legal battle with BMI so there are restrictions imposed that affected its global reach. Grooveshark, which comes second in terms of the number of users might as well be the next best music streaming application.