13 Best practices on how to approach Bing advertising & best tools for the job

Bing Advertising (formerly known as Bing Ads or Microsoft Ads) is one of the most powerful online advertising platforms. But that doesn’t mean that it’s always easy to get the best results from it. After all, there are many different facets to consider. These include campaign management and reporting—not to mention that you have to deal with Google AdWords on top of everything else. 

According to statistics from WordStream, 30% of total search engine share accounts for Microsoft and Yahoo sites using a Bing ad buy. That’s around 162 million unique searchers and 6 billion searches per month. With this, business owners and marketers aim to elevate their brand through Bing advertising. 

Wondering how to maximize Microsoft Ads to your business’ full potential? This article will tackle the best practices for using the online advertising platform and the list of the best tools available on the market right now! Just follow through with the 13 guide questions below. 

1. Why do your keywords not show as targeting?

Keywords are essential to a successful Bing advertising strategy. When you create a new campaign on the platform, you’ll need to specify keywords to target. When you type in a keyword or phrase, it’ll tell you if it has already been targeted by someone else. If it hasn’t been targeted, it’ll suggest what keywords are similar or related to your phrase.

2. When will you start seeing impressions?

Most websites don’t see any impressions for approximately 10 days. It can take time for search engines to crawl your site and index your pages. Until then, you won’t see any traffic from Microsoft Ads. So, be patient! 

An analysis from Fit Small Business recommends launching at least 1-2 months before you plan to start running ads on Microsoft or Yahoo! Search Network because it’ll take some time to get indexed. You may also want to consider giving yourself a few extra weeks just in case there are issues getting indexed.

3. What are the different Bing Ads specs?

Bing’s ad specs are pretty straightforward. The only tricky part is that you need to make sure you’re targeting a relevant country or specific location (such as Boston, MA) if you want to target local customers. Once your account is set up, click over to settings on your Campaign tab, then View Saved Segments. 

This will help you organize all your keywords by demographic information like gender and age groups. That way, it’ll be easy to see how each keyword performs across different age ranges. Additionally, be sure to check out Bing Webmaster Center while you’re in Accounts—they have helpful resources, including case studies, frequently asked questions, and tips and tricks.

4. What makes a good campaign objective?

Campaign objectives are at their most basic level to describe what you want your campaign to do. For example, if you’re driving people to a landing page, use a Website objective. A common mistake is creating campaigns with broad or generic objectives, such as Display Ads or Conversions. You should always choose specific objectives like Clicks, Video Views, or Landing Page Visits instead.

5. Is it better to save your budget overnight or throughout the day?

One of the benefits of Bing Ads is it lets you decide whether you want to spend your budget all at once or across a 24-hour period. The reason you’d choose one over another depends on your marketing objectives.

For example, if you only want to increase brand awareness, it makes sense to spread out your campaign throughout a full day. But if you’re trying to drive direct leads from a cost-per-acquisition (CPA) perspective, it would be essential to keep everything in one lump sum.

6. What budget should you start with?

You don’t need to spend a ton of money on your Microsoft Ads campaigns. The recommended minimum spend is $2, which will get you approximately 1,200 clicks per month. To see meaningful results at that low level, however, you’ll want to keep in mind a few best practices. 

First, make sure you’re bidding for relevant keywords with high search volume. It doesn’t matter how much you spend if your ads aren’t seen by anyone. Second, set up conversion tracking so you can tell what’s working and what isn’t. And third, be patient. It can take weeks or even months to start seeing results from paid advertising. If possible, give yourself six months before evaluating whether it’s worth continuing with paid ads.

7. What is the minimum spend requirement?

One of the best things about Microsoft Ads is that you don’t have to commit to any minimums, which means you can test ads out without getting locked into a big monthly payment. Now, this is a big advantage compared to using social media management tools. 

A list of social media management software has a minimum spend requirement of $30 per month or more. This means small businesses that want to start using social media management ads will be forced to shell out a lot of cash upfront. 

By using Bing Advertising as your testing ground, you can get started with just $5 per day. You’ll also learn quickly if your audience responds well to what you’re advertising. If they do, great! You can then scale up by transferring your campaign over to paid services, such as Facebook Ads Manager or Google Ads.

8. Are you safe from overspending if you turn off automatically manage bids?

You’re safe from overspending if you set a daily budget, or if you turn off automatically manage bids. However, keep in mind that prices may be higher than your specified maximum cost-per-click (CPC) limit. It’s also safer if you have a high-quality score because it takes your ad performance into account when setting prices. If your score is lower than desired, you may want to check this Microsoft Ads guide to help improve it. 

9. How do you enable conversions in Bing Ads?

Enabling conversions in Bing Ads setup is pretty simple. Just follow these steps:

• Navigate to Settings » Conversions.
• Then, use one of these methods to enable conversions in Microsoft Ads: 
  • Option 1: with the MCC campaign (recommended). If you’re using cross-account conversion tracking, go to MCC setup. 
  • Option 2: without the MCC campaign. If you’re not using cross-account conversion tracking, go to conversion tracking setup.

Conversions are relevant metrics in determining whether your campaign is performing well. Hence, you should learn how to set them right. 

10. How do you set up conversion tracking in Microsoft Ads?

To understand how you’re performing, you need to track conversions. The first step is to set up conversion tracking by navigating to Conversions > Goals in your Microsoft Ads account. Then, use Bing Webmaster Tools (Bing WMT) or Google Webmaster Tools (Google WMT) and select one of your conversion URLs as a vanity URL within Bing WMT or Google WMT. After this, you can now start tracking your conversions in Microsoft Ads. 

11. What data do conversion tracking in Microsoft Ads provide you with?

If you’re just getting started with paid search, it can be challenging to know where to begin. Microsoft Ads provides you with a wealth of data to help identify trends and best practices in your marketing efforts. For example, if you’re using conversion tracking, it can even pinpoint which keywords are driving traffic that leads to conversions.

12. Where can you see your campaign performance metrics in Microsoft Ads?

You can see your campaign performance metrics directly in Microsoft Ads. When logged in to the platform, you can view impressions, clicks, average CPC, Cost Per Result (CPR), Average Position, Conversion Rate, and more.

13. How can you run reports in AdCenter/Bing Ads Editor to help optimize your account better going forward?

AdCenter/Bing Ads Editor has a great feature called Reports that allows you to view important metrics like CTR, CPC, and Revenue per 1000 impressions (RPM). The Reports section will also allow you to run reports on various sections of your campaigns, including ad groups and keywords. It’s especially useful when you’re trying to figure out which keywords in your campaign are performing well or poorly. 

For example, if you have some high-performing keywords but don’t have enough budget allocated against them, you can allocate more budget towards these high-performing keywords. The purpose of this strategy is for your ads to get higher impressions as opposed to low-performing ones.

 

 

Use Microsoft Ads to Your Business’ Advantage

Microsoft’s advertising platform has changed a lot in recent years, especially as it started to shift from Bing Rewards to its current setup. To use Microsoft Ads to your advantage, make sure you understand how everything works before getting started. Take some time to familiarize yourself with their campaign specs and benefits. 

Once you have that down, you can start setting up your campaigns. If you have a physical store, Microsoft will also let you show people ads if they search your name or address on Maps!