Traffic Improves for Bing, but Advertisers Leaving

Microsoft’s relaunched search engine – or decision engine, as it calls Bing – is gaining traction. In its first month of existence, Bing received 22.45 million visits, according to Web traffic monitor Alexa.

But search engine tracker AdGooroo says Microsoft’s marketing department may not be seeing a return on its $100 million investment just yet. That’s because advertisers have been slow to adopt Bing.

Though AdGooroo measured a 5.46% increase in first-page advertisers in May, just before Bing’s release, it saw a 3.31% decrease in advertising in June.

“The data also uncovered substantial decreases in ad coverage, so Bing is serving up significantly fewer first page ads than (Bing predecessor) Live Search had served previously,” AdGooroo founder Rich Stokes said in a statement. “This is great news for Bing users and advertisers since reduced ad coverage typically improves the user experience and indicates less competition for advertisers that decide to get in the game.”

AdGooroo’s Search Engine Advertising Update for the second quarter of 2009, released July 13, also covers year over year growth in advertiser base for each of the three engines.

Although Microsoft generated a 35% growth in its advertiser base year over year, Google grew its own base of advertisers by 52%. Yahoo’s advertising base grew by just 14% over the same period.

Merchant advertisers who have jumped on as early adopters Bing include Dell, Sears, J.C. Penney and Home Depot.