The search alliance between Yahoo and Bing saw its biggest market share increase against Google in five years in Q3, in terms of paid search in the U.S., according to a new report from IgnitionOne.

The report says the partnership saw its best showing since Q1 2009 as it increased to 25% compared to Google’s 75%.

Yahoo/Bing is also getting more expensive, it says, with a 5.8% drop in traffic year-over-year, but a large increase in CPCs.

Paid search spend for phones surpassed tablet spend, increasing 18.5% over the previous quarter. Phones saw triple digit growth in search metrics including impressions, clicks and spend, it says.

The report also says third-party network decline caused a ripple effect.

“Search spend decreases 32% YoY as advertisers pull out of Google partner network,” the firm says. “As impressions drop, CTR continues to climb, largely due to advertisers pulling out of display networks and third party search partner networks which have naturally lower CTRs.”

“Paid Search continues to evolve and become more integrated with broader digital marketing efforts. Marketers and their technologies have become more sophisticated as they seek to drive the highest return on their advertising spend and marketing efforts.” says IgnitionOne President Roger Barnette. “Marketers and advertisers are getting better at finding users wherever they are on whatever device they are using.”

You can check out the whole report here.

Image via IgnitionOne