The number of times people clicked on ads listed next to Microsoft’s search results jumped about 8% in the week since the Bing.com was launched.

“If this share lift holds we can expect advertisers to allocate additional budget to Microsoft over the coming months,” said Efficient Frontier Inc., which helps advertisers place text ads on top search engines.

Efficient Frontier, in a blog post on its Web site, also said the number of searches conducted on Microsoft was up about 20% from the week prior to Bing’s launch, either due to new users trying Bing or existing Microsoft search users increasing their volume of queries.

Efficient Frontier said it wasn’t clear whether Microsoft’s gain in paid clicks came at the expense of one or more of its rivals, or whether users simply clicked on a greater number of ads while they tried out Bing. The search engine marketing firm also said it wasn’t clear whether the increase in Microsoft’s paid clicks was sustainable.