What if your PPC campaign was missing a critical component?
Every successful PPC strategy needs to include Bing ads. Unfortunately, the average small business doesn’t understand Bing, much less the need for Bing Ads management.
But we’re here to change all of that. Keep reading to learn more about how you can use Bing Ads to take your digital marketing to the next level!
What Are Bing Ads?
Our guide is going to walk you through all of the key aspects of Bing Ads management. Before we go any further, though, we need to answer a more basic question: what, exactly, are Bing Ads?
The name does not simply refer to ads that users see when they use Microsoft’s Bing search engine. Rather, “Bing Ads” is a specialized platform to help you create ads for Bing users and run a successful campaign. In other words, this tool for Bing is very similar to how Google Ads helps you create ads for Google users.
And as a tool for small businesses, Bing Ads has only gotten better over time. And this is largely because of the Microsoft Advertising Network.
What Is the Microsoft Advertising Network?
When you hear people talk about Bing Ads, they may not always use the term “Bing Ads.” Some of them may instead talk about “Microsoft Advertising.” That brings us to the next major question: what is Microsoft Advertising, and what does it have to do with Bing?
Back in 2019, Microsoft Advertising Network was the new, rebranded name for Bing Ads. And this was more than a name change. Instead, the new name reflected the ability for advertisers to reach out to the entire Microsoft Advertising Network. In other words, you could also take out ads to run on sites like Outlook and Fox Business instead of “only” running ads on Bing.
So, why do people (including us) still use the term “Bing Ads?” One reason is that it reminds us not to overlook Bing when it comes to reaching customers. The other major reason is one we outlined before: simply put, Bing Ads (now Microsoft Advertising) offers a very similar functionality for small businesses that Google Ads offers.
The Difference Between Bing Ads and Google Ads
On the surface, there are some obvious similarities between Bing Ads and Google Ads. This includes the fact that each tool helps you create online advertisements. Furthermore, each tool helps you reach very specific digital marketing goals, including things like creating additional web traffic, improving conversions, and boosting revenue.
But at the end of the day, Bing Ads is a very different animal than Google Ads. And here are just a few of the key differences between these platforms.
One difference is the potential to reach audiences. While Google remains the world’s preferred search engine, Google Ads only lets your ads show up on user searches and Google’s display network. By contrast, Bing Ads let you run ads across Bing, Yahoo, and AOL. This lets you create one ad and display it on all three sites, which helps your company save both money and time.
And the different platforms have different Click-Through Rates (CTR) for different kinds of searches. For example, Bing Ads historically have better CTR for financial service searches and shopping searches. In the fullness of time, you may end up creating different PPC campaigns for different products and services to maximize your use of each platform.
Finally, there tends to be less competition for keywords for Bing Ads than with Google Ads. This may be good news for a smaller business because it means that you will get more value out of each dollar you spend on this platform rather than Google’s platform.
Still not convinced after we compared Bing Ads vs Google Ads? Let’s take a closer look at the benefits that Bing Ads has to offer to your business.
What Are the Benefits of Bing Ads Management?
Let’s get down to brass tacks: at the end of the day, more users still rely on Google Ads than Bing Ads. So why should your company invest in running ads on Microsoft platforms as well as Google?
As usual, it all comes down to the type of audience you are trying to reach. For the most part, Bing users are a bit older (almost 75% are over 35) and more affluent (half the network has an annual household income of at least $75,000). So the Microsoft Advertising network is perfect if you are advertising luxury products and services or anything that appeals to a more mature audience.
And as we touched on before, Bing Ads helps you get more bang for your buck. Some research from Search Engine People discovered that you will pay between 32.5% to 59.2% less on Cost-Per-Click with Bing rather than with Google.
Finally, you have the sheer potential to reach many more people via Bing Ads that you can never reach via Google. This includes users of Outlook, Skype, LinkedIn, and much more. Put it all together and you have a network that allows you to reach 63 million users that Google Ads will never help you reach.
Of course, getting the most out of Bing Ads means knowing what you are doing. To get the most out of your time and money, you should reach out to a Bing Ads management firm. Such a company can help you create a new PPC campaign from scratch or even import your existing Google Ads over to Bing!
Importing a Google Ads Campaign
If you’re looking into Bing Ads campaign management, chances are this isn’t your first digital marketing rodeo. And that means you have likely already created some previous Google Ads campaigns.
In that case, here’s some good news: you can actually import existing Google Ads campaigns into your Bing Ads campaign. In fact, the top menu of Bing Ads gives you a simple Import option. You can bring over one ad at a time or even bring over batches of 10 ads at a time.
When doing this, the easiest method is to import the existing campaign without making any changes. However, you can always make any adjustments you feel are necessary before starting your Google Ads campaign.
Finding the Right Keywords
One comforting aspect of using Bing Ads is that you don’t have to reinvent the wheel all that often. For example, success on the Microsoft Advertising network, as with all PPC advertising, comes down to choosing the right keywords.
You may have some keyword planning software you already use, and it’s fine to keep using what you are familiar with. But you should know that Microsoft has a built-in keyword planner that is user-friendly for both PPC veterans and digital marketing newbies.
The planner will make certain suggestions based on the business info you enter. Just click on Tools, then Keyword Planner, and you can go from there. But you can also add keywords you have in mind as well as negative keywords.
When using the planner, you will have access to useful stats about things like search volume and cost estimates. Arguably, though, the biggest factor you need to consider is the Click-Through Rate as well as the Cost Per Click (CPC). Running a successful Bing Ads campaign means finding the “sweet spot” between these two extremes.
Create the Right Goals
This may sound obvious, but it is always worth repeating: you must begin your digital marketing campaign with certain goals in mind. After you have these goals in mind, you can effectively work backward in optimizing a campaign to help meet those goals.
For example, you might structure one campaign a certain way if your goal is simply to increase traffic to your website. But you’re likely to structure a campaign in a completely different way if your goal is to increase the overall number of conversions.
Fortunately, Microsoft offers enough robust digital campaign options to support almost any major goal for your business. But if you don’t know what those goals are yet, it is crucial to figure things out before you get too far into making a new campaign.
Track That Data
Here’s another thing we love about creating Bing Ads campaigns. No matter how great your campaign is, the next one is going to be even better!
That’s because Microsoft allows you to easily track the results of things like conversions and cost-per-click. This means you can check the results of each campaign and learn what you did well while also learning which mistakes to avoid in the future.
For example, you might study analyze how many conversions your campaign created versus how much you spent on the entire thing. If you believe you spent too much, you can always focus on different keywords for the next campaign and potentially get more bang for your buck.
Understand Your Audience
Earlier, we discussed how the demographics for Bing are different than for Google. And that brings us to one of the cornerstones of digital marketing: understanding who your audience is and what they want.
Fortunately, this is another area where you can use data you already have. For example, if you have previously used Google Analytics to create detailed buyer personas, you can use those personas to determine if your Bing Ads are a good fit.
If it is not a good fit, you can always try different keywords or even transform how you market your products and services. But the most important thing is to make sure to align your marketing with your audience for best results.
Get Better At Targeting the Audience
It’s easy to say you need to target very specific audiences. But when it comes to Bing Ads, do you know how you would do that?
The short answer is that you need to study multiple sets of analytics. This includes tracking where and when conversions occur.
Maybe more conversions happen at night than during the day. Maybe most conversions happen via mobile devices. In some cases, most of your conversions may be centered around a certain location.
Ultimately, you can collect and study all of this data to create future ad campaigns that more perfectly target your chosen audience.
One Tag That Makes All the Difference
By now, you’ve probably realized that much of the Bing Ads functionality is similar to Google Ads. However, there is one tag that Microsoft offers that will make all the difference when it comes to your digital marketing campaigns.
And that tag is the Universal Event Tracking (UET) tag. Once you set this tag up, you can record and study what users are doing after they click on one of your ads and visit your site.
All you have to do is visit the Campaigns page, click on Conversion Tracking, and then click on UET tags. From here, you can save the tag under a special name and then insert this small bit of code into your pages.
To help your analytics, you can also attach specific goals to your tag. For example, you can use it to better learn how long someone spent on your website and even which purchases they made.
What Your Quality Score Means
If you’re new to Bing Ads, then you probably want to know how your campaigns are going. Here’s some good news: you can get this info by studying your Quality Score.
This is a metric provided by Microsoft. To determine your quality score, they look at the quality of your landing page, the relevance of your ads, and your overall Click-Through Rate.
A score between 1-5 is very low and 7-10 is fairly high. You will likely start out with a lower score but can rise from there. And with the help of a good Bing Ads campaign management firm, you can achieve success even quicker!
Your Next Move
Now you know why Bing Ads management is so important. But do you know who can help manage your most successful campaigns?
Here at Pay Per Click Authority, we are happy to help with Bing Ads, Google Ads, SEO, and so much more. To see what we can do for your company, just contact us today!
