Sidebar Text Ads retiring in the US market

As part of the constant evolution of the Bing search engine results page (SERP) to provide more value for our users and our advertisers we are regularly evaluating performance and quality of our ads, including ad position on the SERPs.  In keeping with this commitment, we have decided to remove sidebar text ads on our Bing inventory in the United States on March 26^th, with international markets testing to follow at a later time.
 
Our testing showed that SERP layout excluding sidebar text ads drove overall click gains for our advertisers, particularly for existing Mainline Text Ads and Product Ads, with an immaterial impressions impact.  Furthermore, we are planning to increase ad coverage on the bottom of SERP, which allow for richer ad formats, which sidebar ads didn’t, thus driving improved click through rates.

Additional Change Details

Here are more specifics around the changes we are rolling out:

1. Text Ads will no longer be served on the sidebar, while Product Ads will continue to be served on the sidebar.
2. Bottom of the page (BOP) ads increase from 3 ads to 4 ads. Moreover, BOP ads allow for richer ad formats, which sidebar ads didn’t.
3. This change applies to the Bing SERP only.  No impact for syndication partners including Yahoo and AOL. 

We highly encourage our advertisers to closely monitor their campaigns for the next few weeks to understand the impact on their impressions share and clicks.
 
Questions or comments?
 
If you have any further questions or comments regarding this change, please contact Bing Support or your account manager.