Yahoo has been getting some buzz recently and not for the best of reasons. It is likely that once comScore releases it’s May 2014 search engine ranking, Yahoo’s market share is expected to take a slip below 10 percent in their market share. In April Yahoo recorded a 10% share which is a 0.1 percent dip from March. That means that once officially reported these numbers represent the lowest recorded search number for the Yahoo since comScore started reporting this type of data.
While Yahoo’s market share seems to be continuing to dip as 2014 rolls by many customers and digital advertising agencies alike are asking if the Yahoo platform is still one worth investing your marketing dollars on.
It is a known fact that Google has the widest search engine market share by far, worldwide. Bing seem to be able to maintain their 2nd place position, if by a very wide region. As with everything there are two sides to each story and while we would never recommend to a client to focus solely on the Yahoo platform there are a few things to keep in mind while evaluating the opportunities Yahoo has to offer to the online advertiser.
1. While not as huge as Google, Yahoo still has an active, loyal audience. Yahoo mail is still a widely popular webmail application that millions of users log onto on a daily basis. Back in October 2012 Comscore estimated Yahoo! Mail had around 282 million unique visitors, an impressive number.
2. While most search engine advertisers focus on Google, Yahoo being a far less crowded platform offers incredibly affordable opportunities for advertisers including affordable access to keywords aimed at users interested in products and services that are considered highly competitive on the Google platform.
3. The Yahoo/Bing advertising network combined offers access to over 151 million unique searchers in the US alone. Furthermore every windows smartphone comes with Bing search highly embedded into it’s operating system, which means users that own Windows phones are more likely to use Bing search than Google.
The bottom line – While not even close to the type of traffic Google offers, don’t count Yahoo our just yet. With a focused, highly optimized campaign the Yahoo advertising network can offer advertisers great opportunities that are highly affordable compared to the competition.
