There’s something of a phenomenon in the Internet world that often gets overlooked.
Bing gets a lot of use from seniors.
For the purposes of this article, I’m defining seniors as ages 55+.
The reason why so many seniors use Microsoft Bing for searching the Internet is because they don’t normally customize their computer desktops. Rather, they use what comes bundled with their computers, and whatever is set as default. That means, they use Internet Explorer as their browser, which by default, uses Bing as it’s search.
Overall, Bing is still the distant second to Google in search engine competition. But, it could very well be valuable marketing territory depending on your target demographic.
For that matter, Internet Explorer and Bing are more frequently utilized by blue collar workers and those less-technically inclined. They also use Yahoo a lot, largely because Yahoo pays computer manufacturers to add their icon on Windows desktops.
Adam Read, a data analyst, published a study on this subject, and had this to say…
There is a clear line at middle age that split Google users to Bing and Yahoo users. Google are more likely to be younger whereas Bing and Yahoo have a more mature audience.
Adam goes on to add that women have a higher concentration on Bing.
Because Bing has a lower overall market share than Google, their ads typically cost less than Google’s. According to one our competitors, Aborg, the average cost per click on Bing (in 2014) was $1.07, versus $1.83 on Google.
So it stands to reason, if your demographic is largely senior, and largely blue collar, it may be that switching your ads to Bing could get you similar (or possibly better) overall exposure for much less money.
Furthermore, if that’s your demographic, perhaps you should spend more time using Internet Explorer and Bing. Maybe it’s worth the while to see what your customer base is seeing. It would be interesting to find out if your competitors are already there.