The whole idea behind the Yahoo-Microsoft alliance was to combine forces, knowledge and funding in order to give Google a run for its money as the industry leader in paid search.
It turns out they’re just giving Google money instead.
Because it turns out that Bing has actually hurt Yahoo’s numbers by powering their search advertising. Before teaming up, Yahoo was better at presenting ads to match particular search queries (moving reportedly from 60% of broad matched traffic down to 40% post merger.)
And this is the secret behind search advertising. Making it match the user request. Offering up a hyper-relevant product or service at the very moment someone is looking for it. And it looks like the alliance that was designed specifically to achieve this – is failing at this.