What is Microsoft Ads?
Microsoft Ads is a self-serving online advertising platform that allows you to reach millions of users through search, display and other forms of advertising. Formerly known as Bing Ads, Microsoft Ads serves ads on three powerful search engines Bing, Yahoo and DuckDuckGo, as well as many more.
Similarly to Google Ads, Microsoft Ads serve ads on the SERP (search engine results page). There are several factors that come into play that determine how high an ad will place during a users search. The below factors play a key role in determining where your ads will appear:
- How much you are prepared to bid for each click
- How relevant your ad is to the keyword you are bidding on
- How relevant the copy on your website is to the keyword
The advertising pricing structure is based on the PPC model (Pay Per Click). PPC is a paid advertisement concept in which the platform charges the advertiser a fee for every click on an ad. The baseline bid is set prior to the auction and will determine how high your ad will rank.
Who uses Microsoft Ads?
When most advertisers and users think about search engine marketing, the first thought that usually comes to mind is the juggernaut Google and rightfully so as it is the largest and most used search engine. Despite not being the largest search engine, the Microsoft Ad network (Bing, Yahoo!, and DuckDuckGo) does see a tremendous amount of traffic.
- 14.7 billion global monthly desktop searches
- 724 million unique desktop users worldwide.
- 14.4% of the global PC market share.
Despite these huge amounts of traffic that the Microsoft platforms does see, advertisers are still reluctant to spend their budget on the platform due to a majority of spend being utilised on Google and because of this, there is less competition and more opportunity available on the Microsoft network.
Demographics is extremely important when it comes to launching your ad campaign, after all, you want to be able to reach your target audience wherever they are browsing online, whether that is on Google or Bing. For Bing users alone, 40% are between the ages of 35-54 and 38% have a household income of over $100,000. Better yet, they’re also more likely to spend an extra 52% online.
In addition to the demographic, custom, remarketing and in-market audiences, Microsoft also offers additional targeting options like LinkedIn Profile Targeting, an option that even Google advertisers don’t have access to, something we will discuss further down.
How much does Microsoft Ads cost?
The cost of Microsoft advertising varies greatly on a number of factors such as budget, target audience and competitiveness of keywords. Due to the lower level of competition, the cost associated with advertising on this platform is usually less than Google but does vary from industry to industry.
Just as you would with any other platform, you must continuously optimise your campaigns by way of keyword bids, search term reports and audience targeting amongst others in order to drive efficiency and cut down the costs.
There are several reports available that indicate that average CPC’s across Bing are significantly lower than Google but vary from industry to industry, TheeDigital indicates that CPC’s can differ from anywhere from 32.5% to 60.2% less than Google.
What does Microsoft Ads offer that Google does not?
If the aforementioned reasons on why you should use Microsoft Ads was not enough then see the below features that the platform offers that others simply don’t.
• Campaign Imports – Microsoft allows you to import campaigns from other platforms, this feature is incredibly simple and significantly reduces time that you would spend creating each campaign. Users can import campaigns from both Google and Facebook.
• LinkedIn Profile Targeting – A feature that is completely unique to Microsoft advertising, LinkedIn profile targeting allows advertisers to target specific audiences based on their company profile, industry and job function. Extremely quick and easy to use – advertisers can leverage the above qualities in order to reach a highly targeted and precise audience.
Why you should use Microsoft Ads
Microsoft Ads is an extremely powerful ad serving platform that is a great opportunity to reach an audience that may not be actively browsing other search engines. A combination of lower cost and the ability to create highly targeted ads is enticing for any advertiser. Microsoft also continues to roll out new features regularly to help leverage the capabilities of the platform in order to strengthen your PPC efforts.
If you would like to know more about Microsoft Ads and how we can help your business thrive on the platform, then reach our using the form below to speak to one of our Microsoft Advertising professionals.
