I was sitting in my living room the other night and got that creepy feeling that someone was watching me. A quick look out the window and, sure enough, our German Shepherd was perched up on a snowbank, peeking in the window. 

Do you ever feel like this when you’re online?

In the past few years, there have been discussions about the legality of monitoring search activity. Everyone has access to the internet, and most of us have that access in our pockets every day, some people have thrown up warning flags about being tracked online. 

For years, Google has been the go-to search engine. “Googling” is a household term for searching — which isn’t surprising considering that Google owns more than 92% of the global search engine market (and processes approximately 5.8 billion search queries every day).

However, trust in Google has diminished drastically in the past few years. Are you getting the most relevant information that you are searching for? How is Google using the information it’s learning about you from your browsing?

With Google being embroiled in yet another lawsuit for tracking “private” activity online, many people are looking for alternatives to using Google for searching online. 

Because let’s be honest — no one likes the feeling that they are being watched.

What Alternative Search Engines Are There?  

Bing

The most popular alternative search engine to Google is Bing. Bing tends to be overlooked, even though it has been prevalent for several years. It operates very similarly to Google and offers rewards when you shop through the platform.

While it comes in second to Google, Bing holds 3% of the global search engine market share. (That market share may grow with Bing’s new integration of ChatGPT AI.)  

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Yahoo

Coming in at number three, Yahoo! offers not only search engine capabilities but also email, news, online shopping, and more. It has been around longer than Google and is a go-to choice for news, sports and finance. Yahoo! currently holds 1.08% of the global search engine market share and averages 107 million searches a day.

DuckDuckGo

DuckDuckGo has become popular in the past few years as privacy concerns have increased. It is one of a select few search engines that has zero tracking.  DuckDuckGo has a very minimalistic design and a streamlined experience for its users. 

Other privacy-first search engines

Privacy-centered search engines are becoming more popular as people become increasingly aware of the privacy implications of using traditional search engines. These alternative search engines offer more control over what data is collected and stored, as well as more transparency about how users’ data is being used.

Ahrefs offers a good list of more privacy-centered search engines.

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Alternative Search Engines and Your Business

Google Ads have always been a fairly straightforward concept. If you have the right strategy in place, your product, service or website will populate on Google’s search engine results page (SERP) when your audience is searching, in theory. 

With people leaving Google and moving to other search engines, how can you target that audience? The answer: instead of putting all your eggs in one basket with Google, diversify with Microsoft Ads as well. 

Formerly known as Bing Ads, Microsoft has recently updated their ad platform and has plans for massive growth this year. According to Microsoft, Bing API allows you to efficiently manage multiple campaigns or integrate your marketing with other in-house systems. 

One of the nicest things about Microsoft Ads is if you’re already advertising on Google Ads, you can import your campaigns directly into Microsoft Ads — so you have minimal set-up time and can start advertising to searchers right away. 

In most instances, ads are typically cheaper through Bing when compared to Google so your advertising dollars go further. Plus, when you advertise with Microsoft, you not only have your ads displayed on Bing, but Yahoo! and AOL as well, because they are both owned by Microsoft.

We have seen some good results so far with our clients — especially automotive and RV dealers — using Microsoft Ads. We attribute part of that to the demographics who use Bing (40% of whom are 35 to 54 years old, and one-third of whom have an annual household income of more than $100,000).

Marketing ROI Packages: Don’t waste your budget.

Where to Start?

As with all things digital, the digital advertising landscape is constantly changing. Google isn’t going anywhere, and it’s important to keep them at the forefront of your marketing strategy. However, diversifying your strategy is never a bad idea, and including Bing in your strategy isn’t something you should ignore.

So should you be advertising on Microsoft Bing?

Let our search engine marketing (SEM) specialists help you decide if your audience is there (or not) and how to reach them with a free digital marketing assessment. We’ll offer ideas and opportunities to help your business succeed with digital advertising and more.

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