Are you sleeping on Microsoft Ads?

The most prominent search engine channels are Google and Bing. Both platforms work as PPC (pay-per-click) advertising tools for businesses to help generate traffic, expand their reach, and create revenue. Google has a superior market share (84 %) and is more commonly used by businesses, but Bing (9%) still has a large number of unique visitors each month. Despite Google’s dominance, is it necessary and cost-effective to also adapt Bing ads as a part of your marketing mix?

Are you sleeping on Microsoft Ads?

Microsoft Advertising (formerly Bing Ads) is a powerful marketing tool that businesses often overlook. As the second-largest search engine, exploring advertising options on Bing for a limited period could be highly advantageous for evaluating its potential value. Setting up Bing Ads offers many attractive benefits in addition to Google. Understanding the unique benefits that each search engine offers is crucial when evaluating multiple search engines for a company’s strategy.

• By using both Google and Microsoft ads, you can take advantage of each platform’s strengths, expand your audience, and tap into the untapped potential. Microsoft owns Bing, MSN, Yahoo, and AOL, so your ads will appear on multiple sites when you use Microsoft Ads. Google also has search partners and a wider reach. However, if many of your customers use Outlook instead of Gmail, it may be wise to use Microsoft Ads as well.
• While Bing has fewer users than Google, its ads are more prominent due to less competition, resulting in lower bid requirements for top search result spots. This leads to more cost-effective clicks and a higher return on investment. However, lower traffic means higher conversion costs, but could lead to important conversions you wouldn’t necessarily get in Google.
• However, Google has a larger audience pool, but it does not mean that Bing is a bad investment. Bing’s user demographic represents higher age groups and higher income levels, representing groups with stronger purchasing power, which can benefit businesses targeting those groups.
• Bing Ads Manager is a powerful tool that allows you to reach your target audience more effectively. By utilizing profile information from LinkedIn, you can create highly relevant ads that are more likely to resonate with your audience. This means that you can increase the chances of conversion and ultimately, maximize ROI. 
• Bing has made significant strides in the past decade, making it a more competitive platform than any other rival to Google.
  1. For instance, Chat GPT has been integrated into Microsoft Ads, allowing businesses to improve customer engagement and provide personalized responses to user queries. This could give Microsoft ads a higher market share, making it an attractive option.
  2. As privacy concerns grow, search engines must build user trust while still adhering to corporate policies and ethical responsibilities. Google has already made an impression, but Bing has the opportunity to capture a larger market share by implementing robust privacy and corporate responsibility policies.

Conclusion

In summary, combining search engines can be smart when knowing the advantages to benefit from as well as depending on milestones and budgets. Businesses can achieve success with a fraction of the corresponding Google budget in Bing ads covering all relevant keywords. Microsoft Advertising is quick to get started with, especially for businesses already advertising on Google Ads by just importing an existing Google Ads account. Testing Bing in combination with Google for 3-4 months is a low-risk strategy. Afterwards, you can assess the value it provides.