If you have already been using Microsoft Search (formerly known as MSN Search) or any other search engine to find information about products and services, you may have noticed that when you do a search, Bing ads appear in the results. What are these? And why are they called “Bing ads”?
Microsoft Advertising is a paid service that offers pay per click advertising on both Yahoo! and Bing search engines. According to calculations by Adobe Media Center, Bing ads placed on Yahoo! searched pages received a minimum of five clicks from advertisers, while Google received no clicks.
As of June 2021, Bing ads has only 33% of the market share clicks, which is much less than Google’s position. Microsoft Research analyst, Greg Marshall found out that Google is actually losing market share clicks to its competitor because of Bing ads. This means that Microsoft has invested more in bing ads than it did in Google’s core business. However, there are still many reasons why the search engine giant still holds its lead over its rivals.
Perhaps the main reason why Google’s ad group level remains so high is due to their targeting capabilities and relevance. In order to achieve high visibility in search results, the Google AdWords program enables their ad group level to be adjusted or changed according to certain factors, like current search volume, peak time of the day, and even ad-group level. Because Bing does not offer this feature, they have to make do with what they have–which is much worse than good. In order to target their specific keywords, and to target the right audience, they rely on data provided by searchers themselves through Google tools, and Bing’s inbuilt ad targeting capabilities cannot meet this challenge.
On top of that, Google has several other options in optimizing their website for the specific needs of each individual campaign. For example, when you create a campaign using AdWords, you are given the choice between creating a very close variant of your keyword as well as a wide variant of it. If you use the close variant, your advertisements will only show up on websites with visitors who have visited the exact pages where your keyword appears. However, if you opt for a wide variant, you can potentially reach people with any of your ad groups even if they have not visited your site.
One thing you might not realize is that when you create a pay per click campaign using bing ads, you are actually giving up a lot of freedom in determining where and how your ads will show up. Bing’s paid search marketing options let you choose from several different targeting options, all of which can give you a better return on your investments. In fact, it is not uncommon to see some marketers enjoying great success just by using the mobile devices targeting options and doing joint promotions with their Bing advertisers to drive traffic from these devices to their sites.
Beyond targeting, the tools provided by the paid search advertising campaigns also allow you to manage and monitor performance of these ads. You can easily find out which ad groups and keywords are performing the best and most attractively. If you prefer to stay away from the distraction posed by ad blockers, you can block ads from appearing entirely and rely on the feedback provided by the ads editor to decide what percentage of your ad groupings need to be shown and which ones should be deleted. The flexibility of the platform also lets you experiment with various campaigns and see which one works the best for your goals.
Overall, while Google’s ad platform allows you to create custom ads that fit your exact interests and requirements, it does not give you much control over the way your ads appear. Nevertheless, this limitation is usually addressed by the additional tracking and reporting features offered by the various Google ad networks. If you plan to do more than set up one or two campaigns, it might be worth investing in a suite of services such as Google AdWords Campaigns. With this package, you get the advantage of creating custom ads for every individual campaign, as well as access to real-time reporting. However, if you are just beginning your search for an affordable Google campaign management solution, Bing Ads may be an option to consider.