Microsoft and Yahoo What It Means for Online Marketers

Yesterday Microsoft and Yahoo! finally reached a deal, and while it is no hostile takeover per se, it is worth considering especially for online marketers who use Pay Per Click to drive traffic to their landing pages.  How will this deal impact PPC prices?  Is it good for the industry as a whole? For searchers?

Microsoft and Yahoo What It Means for Online Marketers

The details of the deal can be found here:
http://money.cnn.com/2009/07/29/technology/microsoft_yahoo/index.htm?postversion=2009072908

and here:
http://www.microsoft.com/Presspass/press/2009/jul09/07-29release.mspx

The details of the deal are pretty straightforward, search results on Yahoo.com pages and properties will say “Powered by Bing” and Yahoo will be the ones getting premium advertisers.

Some Thoughts on this Deal for Online Marketers

1. Potential for PPC costs to go down for advertisers (and payouts for publishers to go up)
2. Better ad targeting if indeed search results become more relevant
3. Google has more (viable) competition, which is better for everyone.

Of course these are some speculatory ideas on my end, and the deal won’t go into effect (pending regulatory approvals, etc.) until 2010, but make no mistake Microsoft wants to be a game changer to Google.  There is also good ole gamesmenship between these two (consider the announcement of Google Wave the day after Microsoft announced Bing earlier this year).

Enough…What About YOU? Good for searchers? Advertisers? Marketers? Comment in the boxes below with your thoughts on this deal.

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