Bing Expands Verizon Media Relationship (And That’s Great for Marketers)
Google Ads isn’t the only game in town. Bing, DuckDuckGo, and Ahref’s are staking out their claims in the ad space.
The relationship between Microsoft and Verizon Media is growing. The companies have announced a more expansive advertising relationship. The expanded partnership will allow search marketers to reach audiences across Verizon Media’s networks—Bing, Yahoo!, and AOL—via a single platform. Bing already had a relationship with Verizon before this announcement, but this latest news suggests that both companies are cultivating that bond.
The announcement marks a substantial improvement for the search marketer experience. Rather than logging into multiple platforms, you can now use a single platform to target any user on the Verizon Media network. The platform also leverages Microsoft’s artificial intelligence and Microsoft Graph, both of which enable marketers to target potential customers with greater precision.
Quick history refresher: in June of 2017, Verizon finalized a $4.48 billion takeover of Yahoo!. The acquisition meant that Verizon now controls assets such as Yahoo! Finance, as well as AOL brands such as the Huffington Post. (Incidentally, the transition was not without friction. Verizon paid $350 million less than the originally projected $4.8 billion after breaches of Yahoo! data came to light during the acquisition negotiations.)
Google remains the largest search provider. However, the Microsoft–Verizon announcement is good news for search marketers looking for opportunities beyond Google Ads. Bing Ads is becoming more and more viable as they broaden their portfolio of partners.
What’s more, DuckDuckGo currently uses Bing as its ad platform. This is the same DuckDuckGo, mind you, that announced in February that it topped one billion searches per month. Plus, Ahref’s CEO recently announced that his company intends to create a search engine that pays publishers.
For search marketers, opportunities outside of Google Ads continue to grow.
