Why & How to use Bing Ads?

As many of us know, Google is one of the giants of the internet, it has about 95% of all searches globally, by people who use the search engine on a daily basis. However, there is still a remaining 5% of Microsoft’s audience, Bing Ads where you can take advantage to have more than an alternative, an effective complement to your promotion strategy in the digital world and thus reach a wider audience and improve your results.

As many of us know, Google is one of the giants of the internet, accounting for about 95% of all searches globally, by people who use the search engine on a daily basis. However, there is still the remaining 5% of Microsoft’s audience, otherwise known as Bing Ads, which can serve as a complement to your marketing strategy and help you reach a wider audience.

First things first, let’s see… What does Bing Ads mean?

Bing Ads or Microsoft Ads is Microsoft’s pay-per-click (PPC) advertising platform, where Ads are displayed at the top or right side of Bing, Yahoo and AOL search results. Although its operation is similar to Google Ads, it has some differences that we will see below.

To begin, with this platform, you should configure the keywords required for positioning, and the Bing Ads system, just like Google Ads, is in charge of generating the bids per keyword. Likewise, the advertising generated by Bing Ads is not only through its search engine, but also through display banners of sites that correspond to Microsoft.

What is the difference between Bing Ads and Google Ads?

Although many people associate Bing Ads and Google Ads as rivals, we advise using the two more as allies and complements, to reach a wider audience. Both offer online advertising services with the goal of helping businesses increase website traffic and conversions (sales). What’s really important is to understand the strengths of each type of ad and make the most of them.

To sum things up a bit, let’s define what Google Ads is. In short, it is considered a digital advertising tool, where you pay per click generated to your website. In addition to this, it also consists of several types of advertising:

• Search: your brand appears in the first results of the Google search engine.

• Shopping: your brand appears in the product catalog section where you compete with different brands, usually at the top of the Google search engine.

• Display: your advertising appears in banners on different Google websites.

• Discovery: your advertising appears in different channels such as: Gmail and Youtube.

• Video: show your videos as recommended on Youtube when someone makes a search in the search engine of this tool.

• Max Performance: the newest one and works as a whole; that is, it shows your advertising in different places: Gmail, Google search engine, Youtube, display banners, etc.

Now that we understand the advantages of using both platforms and have defined what Google Ads is, let’s study the differences:

• Format: Google allows only 35 characters per line (2 lines maximum), while Bing allows up to 71 characters.

• Keywords: as for negative keywords in Bing Ads, only negative keywords with phrase match are allowed.

• Multiple search engines: with Bing Ads you can promote your business or brand in three search engines: Microsoft, Yahoo and ALO.

• Location: Bing Ads allows you to specify a radius within a city or through a zip code, which allows your ads to only show to users who are close to a physical store. 

• Time zone: it is possible to set up different time zones for several campaigns without having to create a different campaign for each zone.

• Number of advertisers: as there are fewer advertisers using the platform, there tends to be lower CPCs compared to Google.

• Functionalities: although the Bing Ads platform is very similar to Google Ads, in terms of functionalities it requires a little more development. There are areas where it lacks to complement more optimization and ease of use.
• Call to action extensions: Bing Ads has a button where you can configure different CTAs: call, purchase, installation, car rental, reservation or “see more information.” Unlike Google Ads where you can make the CTAs (call to action) in the text of the ads or with the link or call extensions.

Remember that before choosing one over the other, we recommend working both tools together to get better results.

10 advantages of having digital advertising for your business on Bing Ads

#1 Ads will receive much more interaction

As it is not a commonly used platform, the quality of ads found on Bing Ads are more targeted and effective. Since there are fewer users, ads tend to place higher in search results. This higher engagement leads to more conversions (sales) and better results.

#2 Access to a targeted audience

When you advertise on Bing Ads you can reach a specific niche audience, which are those who do not use Google. Bing’s default search engines are Internet Explorer and Microsoft Edge and users who browse there use it either out of loyalty, or because they don’t know how to install the google search engine on their laptops.

Likewise, according to Microsoft’s consumer trends report 2021, the average Bing audience tends to be over 35 years old (much older than Google’s), have a better purchasing power and have a high level of education. Being older people, it is safe to assume they are less tech savvy and thus avoid using ad blockers, making it much easier to reach this audience.

#3 Lower Competition / Lower CPCs

Competition within Bing Ads is much lower as it addresses only 5% of the total internet audience; i.e. there are far less advertisers and this makes the CPCs for keywords lower by up to 30 – 40% less than Google. In addition, the CTR tends to be higher, reaching 2.83% as opposed to Google Ads which is 1.91%.

 

Also, Bing Ads shows up to 4 ads on the top and 5 ads on the right side, so it can be said that these have much more visibility than Google.

#4 More information and better conversion

In Bing Ads you can add extra information to your ads. The goal of this is to generate trustworthiness to users by showing them more information about your business and convincing them to visit your website. This will drive more traffic and volume to your website because there will be more chances to click. 

The information you add will be displayed in the form of links that lead to different pages of your website, whether it is a specific product, a landing page form to leave data, a demo, or whatever is of interest to show the user and get their attention.

#5 Transfer your Google Ads campaigns to Bing Ads

If you already have a Google Ads advertising strategy, you can import your campaigns using the Bing Ads online tool or Editor. This eases the process of having to set up a campaign from scratch. It is recommended that before importing, you review the information of each campaign since many times not all the data is imported.

Steps to perform the import:

• When you create a Bing Ads account, you will see that Microsoft will prompt you to immediately import any accounts you have associated with Google Ads. 

• Go to your Google Ads account and choose the campaigns of the account you want to import from. You will be able to configure whether you want to import daily, weekly or monthly in “Schedule imports”.

• Once you have completed the import, Bing Ads will give you a summary of the changes that were skipped or modified during the download.

• Next, set up the billing information and budget you will use for the new campaigns in Bing Ads.
• Activate the campaigns and start advertising from Bing Ads.

Never forget to check that the whole process of transferring the campaigns has been completed successfully.

#6 Set up the location, language and time 

In Google Ads to create an ad group, you must first define the location, language and time. These will be used for all your ad groups. In Bing Ads, you can customize these three aspects for each Ad Group, so that you can reach a specific target. Likewise, this last platform gives you the possibility to segment according to the device, and adapt it for each ad group.

In addition, ads can be made in device formats according to the needs required.

#7 Budget and Bidding

It is necessary to take into account that setting the budget and bidding is different in Bing Ads than in Google Ads. Although, both offer the possibility of setting a maximum budget for your ads. Keep in mind when importing your campaigns and ads in Google Ads, that the bid you set is the correct one. This is good to know because Bing Ads it automatically adjusts to the criteria established by Microsoft.

#8 Quality Score

The quality score in Bing Ads allows you to see the level of competitiveness against competitors and this is given through the measurement of keywords, a good landing page optimization and the rating of excellent in the ads.

The quality index goes from 1 to 10, with 10 being the highest score. It is good to take into account this index, because it gives you a better idea of where to direct your objectives.

In the case of Google Ads, it only measures the quality of the website for the keywords chosen and best optimized on the site. The closer the score is to 10, the higher the probability of appearing at the top of the search engine results.

The criteria to take into account in Bing Ads according to Microsoft are the following: 

• Expected CTR (Click to Rate): help to ensure that your ads generate more clicks according to the chosen keywords.

• The relevance of the ad: it focuses on how relevant the ad is for users who are looking for the product/service information. Don’t forget to include as much information as possible in the ad for it to be better qualified.

• The experience on your landing page: as mentioned above, the quality of the landing page is measured by how responsive it is to different devices.

#9 Ability to “Track” your traffic

Knowing exactly where your traffic comes from and having access to all the information about the performance of your campaigns, is an advantage that Bing Ads offers. You will be able to measure impressions, conversions, and optimize and target your campaigns according to the results.

#10 Custom Ad targeting

Last but not least, targeting for Bing Ads can be customized at the ad group level (much more accurately) unlike Google Ads, where it is done at the campaign level.

In addition, Bing Ads uses the time zone based on the end user and not on the advertiser account as Google Ads does.

How to create a Bing Ads account?

To create an account in Bing Ads, just follow these simple steps that I will show you below:

First, go to the Bing Ads website and log in. You can use an existing email account or register a new one. 

1. Go for it!… Create your campaigns. You can start creating campaigns from scratch or as mentioned above by importing them from Google Ads.
2. Define your target, budget and Ad Group.
3. Research and choose keywords taking into account the CPC per word.
4. Get creative!…Create your ads. Remember that the maximum number of characters for the title is 30, and for the description is 80.

At the end…

Although Bing Ads may reach a smaller volume of users, managing the advertising from this platform will allow your ads to reach a more specific niche, using a smaller budget and higher ROAS, which is what all brands are looking for when they start paying for advertising on the Internet. 

Don’t think twice!… Take the challenge of increasing your conversions by diversifying your advertising platforms.