On January 8, 2019, Verizon Media (formerly Oath) and Microsoft unveiled a multi-year global native advertising partnership. The goal? To deepen native inventory and expand access for marketers via Verizon’s ad platforms. The collaboration, effective immediately, adds 20% more native inventory—including high-performing ad formats and exclusive placements—across Microsoft News and MSN.
This announcement marks an extension of an already well-established relationship. Together, Verizon and Microsoft now offer expanded access to brand-safe video, display, and content marketing solutions across a range of Microsoft properties—including MSN, Outlook, and Xbox.
With Microsoft properties reaching nearly 500 million monthly users, Verizon’s platforms will now serve native ad opportunities across every Microsoft News/MSN page in over 30 countries. These native ad placements span homepage features and article-level embeds, offering an expanded creative canvas for brands. And as programmatic native inventory is added to other Microsoft properties, it will also be routed through Verizon’s ecosystem.
What’s the Impact?
While the marketing opportunities are significant, the measurable impact—at least in the short term—is expected to be modest. Industry projections suggest that clicks across the Bing Ads marketplace could increase by 10–15% in the U.S. as a result of this consolidation.
Importantly, after March 31, 2019, Verizon’s paid search traffic will stop entirely, and 100% of Yahoo Search Network traffic will be routed through Bing Ads.
This change is meaningful in the context of breaking up Google’s long-standing dominance, but let’s put it in perspective.
By the Numbers: Who Owns the Search Ad Market?
Here’s a breakdown of 2019 U.S. search ad revenues (in billions) and share of total:
Google: $36.62B (80.2%)
Microsoft: $3.02B (6.6%)
Yahoo: $1.04B (2.3%)
Verizon (AOL): $0.22B (1.1%)
And here’s search engine market share, U.S. and global:
United States:
Google: 87.28%
Bing: 6.91%
Yahoo: 4.65%
DuckDuckGo: 0.59%
MSN: 0.21%
Other: 0.36%
Global:
Google: 92.25%
Bing: 2.41%
Yahoo: 2.07%
Baidu: 1.01%
Yandex RU: 0.63%
Yandex: 0.48%
So yes, this alliance consolidates power. But even a full migration of Yahoo traffic to Bing only shifts a few points of share in Microsoft’s favour—hardly an industry upheaval.
Google’s Loss, Microsoft’s Gain
There is, however, one area where this move dents Google’s turf: Shopping ads.
According to Merkle, Yahoo has run Google Shopping Ads since 2016, generating between 2–3% of Shopping ad clicks for Google. Given that Shopping now drives nearly two-thirds of retailers’ Google search ad clicks, that’s a noticeable chunk.
Yahoo’s Gemini platform, meanwhile, has accounted for 1–2% of U.S. search ad clicks. Now, Microsoft regains that traffic, bringing those clicks home to Bing.
“The incremental click share increase to Bing will be relatively small—around 2% net—but this is a tremendous move for the industry,”
— Matt Mierzejewski, SVP, Search Capability Lead at Merkle
The Mobile Gap
There’s still one critical flaw in Microsoft’s armour: mobile.
Google controls mobile search, primarily because it is the default provider on both Android and iOS. In Q4 2018, just 22% of Bing’s searches came from mobile, compared to Google’s 61%.
Meanwhile, The Economist predicted that mobile would surpass 60% of digital ad spend in 2019. If Microsoft and Verizon want more than a symbolic win, they need to grow significantly on mobile—fast.
As Mierzejewski points out, more strategic partnerships could be key. Google, after all, pays Apple a reported $12 billion to stay Safari’s default search engine. Microsoft needs to play a similar long game to chip away at Google’s lead.
