Yesterday, Microsoft launched Bing.com, a “Decision Engine” and consumer brand to replace their current Live.com search engine.  MSN.com will remain the Microsoft portal and Bing.com will be the new destination engine.  According to our CEO of GroupM Search Chris Copeland, Bing.com brings growth potential for Microsoft, predicting the company could obtain a 12% market share by end of 2009.  Read more about Bing.com and what Chris had to say in a Dow Jones article picked up on CNNMoney.com.

Short Term Advertising Impact

Bing.com is mainly a consumer branding push, therefore, not much will change in the way of the advertising experience.  There are no immediate actions advertisers need to take.  The paid search placements on Bing.com will remain as they have in Live.com.

In an effort to provide a higher level of pertinent results, increased relevancy restrictions will be tightened with the release of Bing.com in order to help significantly reduce arbitrary sites, such as link farms, in the search results.

As Bing.com grows in popularity, it has the potential to help even-out the monopoly currently seen in the search engine industry.  What this means for advertisers is they will be less dependent on one or two engines to drive their search marketing.

Potential Advertiser Opportunities

As mentioned, there are no immediate actions advertisers need to take.  However, thinking ahead to the future of Bing.com can help gain a competitive edge on the advertising opportunity.

• Be flexible with how search advertising budgets are allocated.  As Bing.com gains more footing, be aware it may be able to spend media dollars more quickly and more effectively than Live.com has been able to in the past.
• Be prepared for increased spending during the media hype around the launch.  People will be going to Bing to test out its capabilities.  Paid search advertisers may see a sudden influx in clicks and spend.
• Be prepared for changes in site traffic- during the launch period as well as into the future.  Since Bing will be serving up results differently than what users are used to with traditional search queries, some advertisers may see their sites showing more often in the results and receiving more visits.  The same can be said for the opposite; some advertisers may see their traffic from Microsoft decrease.
• Creative Creative.  The technology of Bing.com will allow the engine to dynamically adapt to queries and provide more relevant and intuitive decision-making natural results.  There will be an important interplay between organic and paid search.  With the organic results improving, paid search ad creative will need to improve as well to grab the users’ attention.  Plan a creative test with your search team once Bing.com launches to gain learnings and insights.

Bing.com Details

Bing’s three design goals are (1) to provide great search results, (2) to provide an organized search experience, and (3) to simplify tasks and provide insight.

Click here for a demo of Bing.com.

Bing will initially focus on four main verticals: online purchases, travel, pharma and local search.  Results falling into these categories will be grouped together, more robust and distinguished.

As Microsoft states, the rollout of the new branding will include changes to the following existing programs:

• Microsoft’s mapping platform, Virtual Earth, will now be branded as Bing Maps for Enterprise.
• Technology from Microsoft’s April 2008 acquisition of Farecast is now a central part of Bing Travel.
• Microsoft’s popular cashback program, now dubbed Bing cashback, with more than 850 merchants and more than 17 million products available, will be fully integrated into the Bing Shopping experience.

Initial press for Bing.com is positive.  A co-founder of Apple, Steve Wozniak, which is direct competition to Microsoft, provided Bing.com with a glowing review: