What is Microsoft Advertising (Bing Ads) and is it worth using?

Do you only associate paid search ads with Google search? Not at all surprising, after all, Google has remained over 90% popular compared to other search engines for many years (current data for March 2023 show that Google is used by 93.18% of users worldwide). In contrast, the second most popular search engine in the world is just… Bing! The equivalent of Google Ads in the type case is Microsoft Advertising formerly known to us as Bing Ads.

This is a Microsoft-owned advertising platform that allows advertisers to display their ads on the Bing search engine site and partner sites. It offers search not only by keywords, but also video, map and image search. According to statcounter.com, Bing’s share of the global browser market was 3.19% in 2022. It is currently most popular in the United States and China, while in Poland it is used by about 3% of users. You’re probably thinking that since hardly anyone uses this browser anyway, it’s not worth advertising in it. Let me show you that nothing could be further from the truth!

Google Ads or Microsoft Advertising (Bing Ads)? 

Have you been running Google Ads campaigns for a while now and are wondering whether to try advertising on the second most popular browser in the world? Or maybe you are just starting out and are facing the choice of the platform on which to start your advertising efforts?

They’re just starting out.

Both systems are very similar to each other. When you first see the Bing Ads panel you will probably be shocked by its similarity to the Google giant. For those who work with Google Ads on a daily basis, this will come as a pleasant surprise, while if you’re just getting started with browser ads, learning one system will definitely make it easier to work with the other later on.

What results can Bing Ads campaigns bring to your business?

Let’s check it out! We will help you to effectively use the potential of Bing Ads, thanks to our knowledge and experience in this field.

Let’s talk!

What types of ads do we have to choose from in Bing Ads?

Similar to Google Ads, we don’t have only text ads to choose from, but several types of them:

• Text ads

This is the most common and popular ad format in Bing Ads. Just like in Google – it involves displaying headlines, ad text and a link directing to a landing page. 

• Dynamic text ads

These are ads generated based on the content of your site that match the content displayed to the user’s query.

• Product ads

Their role is the same as in other advertising systems – they are meant to encourage purchase. They display a picture of the product, its name and price. Here we have a choice of two types of campaigns:

• Standard shopping, where we choose the products, rate setting strategy, budget and targeting. Ads can be displayed on Microsoft’s Search Network and Audience Network. This option also gives you greater ability to modify and control your campaigns.
• Smart shopping, geared toward maximizing returns, using automatic rate setting and targeting on the Microsoft Search Network. Smart product campaigns take precedence over standard product campaigns, which target the same set of products. Remember also that if you want to run a smart product campaign, you need to set up conversion tracking. If you don’t know how to set them up, contact a marketing agency
• Display ads

Most commonly used if you care about brand awareness and recognition efforts, as well as expanding reach. These types of ads will display on the Microsoft Audience Network (Bing, Yahoo, MSN).

• Remarketing ads

As the name suggests – they will allow us to reach users who have already interacted with our website or online store. 

Advertising targets available in Bing Ads

This is also where it won’t come as a big surprise to you if you’re switching from Google Ads to Microsoft Advertising. The targets we can choose for our campaigns are quite intuitive and similar to what you’ve already seen in advertising systems. Here you have a choice of:

• Visits to my website: if you want to increase traffic to your website.
• Visits to my business location(s): if you want more people to visit your stationary store or office.
• Visits to my business location(s): if you want more people to visit your stationary store or office.
• Conversions in my website:this is where we focus on measuring the actions that users perform on our website. 
• Phone calls to my business: when we care about increasing the number of phone calls. 
• App installs: when we want to increase the number of downloads of our application
• Sell products from your catalog: is a product campaign. Keep in mind that if you want to use it, you need to create a Merchant Centre, where as in Google Merchant Centre you will be able to manage 
• Promote your apps and games: a new campaign goal that may be of interest if you want to promote your apps and games on the Microsoft Store.
• Video view: also a new one of the goals, similar to video ads 

How to create a campaign in Bing Ads?

To start creating your first ads in Bing Ads, you first need to create an advertising account, provide all the necessary details such as company name, company address, payment method, etc. on the Bing Ads website. After logging into the account, select the campaign to which you want to add ads, or using the „+Create” button, create a new one.

After selecting an ad target, we move to the type of ad we want to create. We can choose from such as text ads, image ads, video ads and many others mentioned above. 

When creating a text ad, we need to enter the text of the ad, that is, the headline, description and URL of the landing page. In the headline we put the most important information about the product or service we want to advertise, and in the description we present its advantages. The URL should lead directly to the landing page where the user can make a purchase or get more information.

For image ads, you need to prepare graphics of the required size and format, whose content and design will encourage users to click. Video ads require the preparation of video footage and the selection of a suitable display format.

The next step is to select the target audience, i.e. the people to whom we want to show our ad. Bing Ads offers a number of different options, allowing you to specify the exact target audience, such as age, gender, location, interests, and even the online behavior of users.

The next step is to choose the right video ad.

After creating an ad, you need to approve it and run the ad campaign. Bing Ads offers a number of tools for monitoring and optimizing ad campaigns, allowing you to accurately track results and customize ads to meet users’ needs.

The ad campaign can also be used to monitor and optimize the user experience.

Quality-first, i.e. effective ads in Microsoft Advertising

What do you need to keep in mind when creating ads in Microsoft?

• Matching principle 

Your advertising should be tailored not only to your audience, but to your landing page. Ensure consistency between your landing page content and your ad texts. Otherwise, when you promise something in the ad, and when the user clicks on it, he sees something else – you lose a potential customer, for whose click, worse, you have already paid.

• Responsive keywords

Here, too, the principle of matching with both the content of the ads and the content of the page is important. As in Google Ads here we also have a choice of three types of keyword matching: approximate (broad), to phrase (phrase) or exact match (exact). 

• Apply CTAs in your ads

Whatever advertising system you use, be it Google Ads, Bing Ads or Meta Ads, be sure to use a call to action. Sometimes even a short „See latest offer” or „Contact us” is enough, and you will see a positive impact on the effectiveness of your advertising.  

Optimize campaigns in Bing Ads

Campaign optimization is crucial if you want to achieve the best possible results in Bing Ads. Optimization can involve many aspects of a campaign, such as keyword selection, campaign structure or proper setting of click-through rates.

Choosing keywords is particularly important because it allows you to hit the right audience. It is worthwhile here to take advantage of the tools available in Bing Ads, such as the Keyword planner, which allows you to find the most relevant and popular keywords for a given industry.

The keyword planner can be used to find the most relevant and popular keywords for a given industry.

Another important element of campaign optimization is campaign structure. A campaign that is well planned and well divided into ad groups allows you to reach your chosen audience more effectively. It is important here that the ad groups correspond to specific products or services, which allows you to better match the content of the ads to the audience.

Finally, a good way to optimize campaigns in Bing Ads is to monitor the results of the campaign. This allows us to adjust the campaign to the needs of the audience on an ongoing basis and improve the advertising strategy.

Why advertise in Microsoft Bing Ads? 

If you’re still not convinced whether it’s worth it to get interested in this advertising system, as a summary I’ve prepared for you some advantages that appeal to you to start testing in Bing Ads:

• Differently less competition from advertisers than in Google Ads,
• Resulting from the above – lower CPC,
• Your ads will not only appear in the Bing browser, but will also reach Yahoo, thus expanding your audience,
• Transfer your campaigns from Google Ads to Bing Ads, so you are spared the need to create new campaigns from scratch each time,
• other targeting options – in addition to the standard targeting you’ll also find in Google Ads, in the Bing Ads system you can target ads based on industry or position of LinkedIn users,
• Microsoft Advertising is also a good choice if you plan to expand your efforts to foreign markets where Microsoft Advertising is king, such as the US,
• Effective operations in the B2B sector, since Bing is the default browser in large companies and corporations.