Are Bing Ads on Facebook Inevitable?

With Facebook unveiling Graph Search, it’s made clear its intention of wanting to grab hold of Google’s search engine users. There hasn’t been as good of a response as Zuckerberg would’ve expected from Facebook’s Graph Search users, and to add to that is the fact that Zuckerberg, being the sly fella that he is, has been holding out information on Bing and Facebook’s latest collaboration.

Bing’s VP of Search, Derrick Connell, made it crystal clear that Graph Search was a joint venture between the two. And if you go to Bing’s blog where this announcement was posted, you’ll get a preview of how a web search on Facebook might possibly look like in the time to come.

Connell wants  you to believe that it’s going to be a true-blue search engine, when the reality is that the image very clearly showed Sponsored Results, which, needlessly to say, would originate from Bing. The first search result that you get to see is “Sponsored”. It makes one wonder – Are Bing ads inevitable on Facebook?

It would be an ambitious step on Bing’s behalf, considering that despite having about 25% of all U.S. web searches, it still isn’t half as popular as Google. Advertising via Facebook would mean a better distribution space for Bing and its advertisers. After all, distribution IS Bing’s biggest hurdle that it is yet to face. Not to mention that it would able to cover many more potential targeting options for advertisers through its advertisement network. A combination of information from Facebook and Bing would, needless to say, be the most powerful targeting to date.

This is how Graph search works – users get information through it, and if they’re unable to find it via Facebook, then Bing steps in. All the resultant search results will be powered by Bing. It will take a lot of co-ordination between the two giants – Facebook will have to understand which questions it can answer without leaning on Bing for their answers, while Bing will have to step up its game and do thorough research on users’ search patterns, most commonly asked user questions etc.

As of now, there are lots of “ifs” and “buts” but no solid answers. There is a lot to be speculated on, but nobody knows what will really happen out there. It would certainly be a game-changer, especially for Bing, if this deal goes through.

Whether or not this will become a reality is to be seen. We can only wait and watch.