What the Yahoo-Microsoft Partnership Means to You

As you may already know, a major announcement was recently made in the Internet marketing world—that of an alliance between Yahoo and Microsoft in an attempt to create more competition for Google.

Kutenda Has Your Back
Part of the value that Kutenda brings to our partners is to act as a source of ongoing education about Internet marketing trends that you and your clients should be aware of. In that spirit, I’d like to let you know how we believe the Yahoo and Microsoft partnership will impact you, our Kutenda partners, and your customers.

Google: No Longer the Only Act in Town
As you know, Google has completely dominated the search engine marketplace—accumulating nearly 70 percent market share. While the company has done a great job of making it easy to find information and market products and services online, the result of their domination is a lack of competition. When it comes to online marketing, Google is the 800-pound gorilla, and you have no choice but to play by their rules and pay their prices.

Enter the Microsoft-Yahoo partnership.

An Industry Shake Up
This deal will have major repercussions for the online advertising industry. Currently, Yahoo and Microsoft rank second and third to Google, respectively. But combined they carry a lot of industry weight. Their roles will be divided. Yahoo will become the exclusive worldwide relationship sales force for both companies’ premium search advertisers. Self-serve advertising for both companies will eventually be fulfilled by Microsoft’s AdCenter platform, and prices for all search ads will continue to be set by AdCenter’s automated auction process. This won’t be happening for at least a year after the deal closes, so don’t worry about it now.

The Impact on Small Business
Advertisers, publishers and, I believe, small businesses with limited budgets in particular stand to benefit significantly from a unified search and advertising platform, combined sales and marketing resources, and the promise of more competitive prices that increased competition brings. Bottom line: These companies are putting a lot of cash and manpower into taking market share away from Google.

But while this new partnership will result in more competitive Pay-Per-Click advertising prices (a big win for businesses), it will also require online marketing service providers to learn how to use Microsoft and Yahoo effectively—something most haven’t had to consider because Google was the one place to go.

Kutenda Can Help You Navigate the Confusion
The net result is that you’re going to have more to manage … unless you use Kutenda. (You’re so smart you should pat yourself on the back for partnering with us!) With Kutenda, you have one tool that allows you to:

• Optimize every web site you manage for strong organic results in all three search engines.
• Create, manage and track pay-per-click campaigns for all three search engines in Kutenda.
• Submit your clients’ business info to all three search engines’ local directories from inside Kutenda.

So, while the search world just got more complicated for everyone else, your world just got better. As the partnership between Yahoo and Microsoft is fully realized over the next couple of years, you’ll be in the perfect position to take advantage of the new opportunities created for you and your clients by partnering with Kutenda.