Bing users click on more ads than Google's. What does that mean to you?

You’ve really got to hand it Microsoft. Their new search engine, Bing, is getting lots of love from both customers and the media in its first couple months of life. Now comes a report that claims customers click on ads on Bing much more often than on Google. For anyone looking to get involved in search marketing – or any type of marketing at all – those are “sit up and take notice” kind of numbers.

Even more impressive is its relative share of clicks. Erick Schonfeld does a good job of breaking down the data in the report and for me, this is the interesting bit:

• 78% of all clicks came from Google.
• 12% from Yahoo!
• 10% from Bing

Considering they’ve only been around a handful of weeks, that’s very good news for Bing. Relative to their share of impressions (7%), they’re getting a disproportionately large chunk of the clicks. So, opportunities definitely exist, so long as they fit with your business.

What do I mean by that?

Well, Bing’s demographics – much like Microsoft’s historical averages – skew a little older and a little lower on measures of education and income when compared with Google. For instance, here’s a comparison of income statistics:

Bing Demographics [Source: Quantcast.com]

Google demographics [Source: Quantcast.com]

While that may not matter in all categories, some businesses may find that Bing’s users don’t fit their demographic profile. Or, they might fit the profile well, but not drive enough traffic to generate meaningful income. Back when I was selling an economy-priced product, MSN significantly outperformed Google on a cost-per-acquisition basis. The flip-side is that Google crushed MSN from a traffic perspective. Ah, the joys of trade-offs.

Clearly, you should always pay attention to items growing this fast. And there’s no doubt Bing makes the cut here. But it needs to make sense for your business, too. Don’t follow the herd just because they’re chasing a popular story.

If any of this sounds familiar to you, it should. It’s very much in line with our advice when Bing first launched: make sure it’s covering your basics first, then test for added benefit.

We’ll keep our eyes on Bing and keep you posted over time. In the meanwhile, how’s Bing working for you? Tell us about it in the comments.

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