Is Bing Shopping as Good as Google or Amazon?

Can Bing Shopping Be As Good As Google or Amazon?

As an ecommerce merchant, when it comes to choosing the right comparison shopping engines to work with, you tend to go where the shoppers go, right? That’s why you likely dedicate a fair amount of time, energy, and money into Google and Amazon’s CSEs. They garner high amount of traffic, meaning you (hopefully) see a good amount of ROI for your product listing ads.

But any smart ecommerce merchant knows that diversification is key. Don’t put all your eggs into one basket, and don’t rely on just one (or two) CSEs to maximize on your product listings.

While there are a fair number of CSEs out there, Bing Shopping is working hard to become one of the top three go-to engines that merchants and consumers flock to. But are their efforts working as planned?

Don’t be Scroogled

Of course one doesn’t have to think back too far to remember those clever Scroogled ads that Microsoft targeted against Google, when Google announced that its shopping results would turn toward a pay structure. When Google made that announcement, merchants (perhaps even you) looked for other still-free search engine alternatives. Bing Shopping was one of those alternatives. But just because something’s free doesn’t mean it’s good. So, where does Bing Shopping stand?

Here’s the straight and obvious fact – Bing Shopping traffic pales in comparison to Google or Amazon’s CSEs. But ecommerce merchants can use Bing to their advantage despite this shortcoming.

Here’s how: many ecommerce merchants have cited that after extensive split testing with Google Adwords, Yahoo, Bing, and Amazon, even though there were far fewer clicks with Bing, the conversion rates were much higher. Is the overall performance underwhelming? Perhaps, but why turn down free traffic? If you get even just 5 sales per month on Bing, was it worth the time to list with them? That’s up to you to decide.

Bing does have a paid model, in conjunction with Shopping.com. Merchants who use this setup often see far more visibility on Bing, and will see their Shopping.com traffic increase steadily. But, by sending a feed to Shopping.com, you run the risk of cannibalizing your Bing Shopping traffic (thus, in essence, eliminating the “free traffic” benefit). How does this occur? Bing tries to source Shopping.com’s listings whenever possible, since Bing receives a percentage of each click cost. Thus, merchants have seen drastic drops in their Bing Shopping traffic, while enjoying a higher Shopping.com return.

Stick with the free model

When you add a pay-per-click model into the mix, Bing just isn’t worth the investment. At least not yet. The amount of traffic Bing sees is nowhere near what Google or Amazon sees.

The value of Bing is in capitalizing on its free listing structure. Yes, the traffic your ad will be exposed to is small, but any free exposure is good exposure. Need help getting your products listed? Do you have a presence there already, but looking for some rejuvenation? OperationROI can help. Call us at 1-888-277-5429 or fill out our contact form for more information.