The two main players on the search engine stage are Google and Bing. Most of us are familiar with Google’s offerings, but Bing and its partners are just as valuable to your small business. Bing Search Advertising, formerly known as Bing Ads, is the official pay-per-click (PPC) service for the Microsoft Search Network, including Bing, Yahoo, and AOL.

What is Bing Search Advertising?

Bing Search Advertising is a PPC platform designed to help your business reach a specific audience, drive traffic to your website, and increase revenue. Microsoft launched its ad platform under the name Bing Ads in 2006, six years after their main competitor, Google, started offering PPC campaigns. Those early years gave Google a definite advantage in terms of brand awareness and their popularity as a PPC platform. However, Microsoft Ads have been growing quickly and offer some noticeable advantages over a Google Ads campaign.

How is it different to Google Ads?

In many ways both the Google and Microsoft PPC platforms are the same. They both offer businesses the opportunity to bid for ad space at the top of search results or within display networks. They both provide fast results with ads going live within hours or days, and they are both very cost-effective ways to get your business noticed and increase revenue.

There are two main differences between these ad platforms. First is the search engine that they advertise on. Bing Search Advertising targets people who use the Bing search engine, which is also the default search engine across all Windows 10 & 11 operating systems. Google Ads target people using the Google search engine.

The other main difference between the two are the demographics of their search audience. According to Bing’s own data, more than 50% of their searchers are 45+. They’re also a fairly career-focused group, with 33% holding a Bachelor’s degree and more than 38% earning $100,000 or more.

Google holds a majority of the search audience in Australia which means their demographics are broader.

Benefits of Bing Search Advertising

If you’re trying to decide between the two big PPC players, or whether it’s worth using both in your campaign, here’s a few reasons to take on Bing Search Advertising.

Lower cost than Google

Google Ads is incredibly popular, making it incredibly high competition. The costs for some keywords can be extreme. Research suggests it’s an average of $20.08 per click on Google but only $7.99 for Bing. There are millions of potential customers searching with Bing each month; around 137 million in Australia which equates to a 15.1% market share. So lower competition doesn’t mean less opportunity for revenue, but it could mean a higher return on investment; you spend less per ad but can still achieve huge visibility.

Import your existing ads

The team at Microsoft realise many people start with Google ads, and they aren’t looking to make you choose between platforms. They make it easy to import your existing Google ads campaign into Bing Search Advertising so that you can use the same great ad across multiple platforms. The benefit of running ads on both is that you’ll be visible to almost 100% of searchers.

Better audience targeting

Audience targeting has been a feature of PPC ads since their earliest beginnings. You can target your ads based on information like gender, age, geographic location, and plenty more on both platforms, but only Bing Search Advertising allows you to target by the day of the week, time of day, or device (i.e. mobile vs. desktop). If market research tells you that more consumers are likely to purchase your product from a computer, you can update your ads to avoid mobile searchers. If you run a time-sensitive business, like takeaway food, you can increase your ad spend at crucial hours, and decrease it at low traffic times. This boosts your cost-efficiency by making sure your ad is performing at the most opportune moments.

LinkedIn profile targeting

LinkedIn is fast becoming one of the most crucial social networks for accessing business data. Bing Search Advertising is the only PPC platform that allows you to target potential customers using their LinkedIn profile information. This is great news for B2B businesses who service a particular industry or are seeking higher ups and decision makers. You can target your ads based on:

• Company (e.g. Microsoft)
• Industry (e.g. Tech)
• Job Function (e.g. Accounting)

Work with a Microsoft Advertising Partner

Bing Search Advertising is a smart choice for any business – big or small – to be more visible to searchers. Setting up an account for yourself takes time away from your business, which is why we’re here to do the hard work for you. Webcentral are an official Microsoft Advertising Partner, which means our PPC team are experts at everything the platform has to offer. To start benefiting from ads on Bing and its partner sites, contact our consultants on 1300 638 734.