Why Bing should be factored into your PPC Plan
When it comes to pay per click (PPC) advertising, Google reigns supreme. No surprise given its status as the largest and most popular search engine with a reported majority of the search market share. However, while it may seemingly live in Google’s shadow, alternative search engine Bing comes with a series of opportunities for the savvy digital marketer looking to make their paid budget stretch further.
Bing works in partnership with Yahoo which belies a quiet power and influence that Google-purists may fail to notice. The fact is, people are using the Bing search engine, and if your PPC campaigns focus exclusively on Google, you’ll miss out on the traffic that Bing can generate.
Read on to understand why it might just be time to stray from Google.
Bing Ads versus Google Ads
Bing Ads comes with just as many, if not more, features than Google.
Size of the audience
Bing Ads operate on Microsoft’s three main search engines: Bing, Yahoo and AOL. Did you know that Bing is the default internet browser for Microsoft Edge and Internet Explorer (IE)? Unless you make a conscious decision to change your default search engine to Google, or still make the effort to go to the Google homepage on IE, then Bing will perform your search. The audience is there – Microsoft says that they have 22% search market share and approximately 378 million monthly searches. With that many potential users within reach, why not show some ads on this search engine?
The cost per click
Right now, fewer people are running Bing Ads compared to Google Ads meaning there is less competition on this search network. That’s good news and means that, right now, you can achieve a lower cost per click on Bing comparative to Google. This can yield better ad positions and better click through rates for lower levels of investment. Does this affect your ROI? Absolutely. Bing Ads can often achieve a cheaper cost per click while still driving conversions.
Bing has more control at campaign and ad group level
In Google, the campaign level setting will dictate how the ad groups perform. This can include the network, any ad scheduling, setting the location and language. In Bing Ads, the settings available at campaign level can be applied at ad group level. This is brilliant for adjusting any ad groups without having to create a whole new campaign.
Bing rewards you
With just under a quarter of the search market share, Bing is already pretty popular. But with Google ultimately holding the lion’s share of the search market, Bing is making some aggressive moves to poach users by introducing Bing rewards. Bing rewards simply require users to search, shop or play on Microsoft in order to receive a reward while logged into a Microsoft account. Bing rewards can be accumulated and be redeemed for gift cards, sweepstakes entries, non-profit donations and more.
Keyword match types
Google made big changes to how it approached the exact and phrase match settings of a keyword. Following the change, ‘match types’ get triggered by close variant matches such as misspellings, singular / plural forms, acronyms and abbreviations – over which marketers have no choice or control. The jury’s still out on whether this is a good or a bad thing for advertisers, but it does mean Bing Ads can score a potential point because it doesn’t force these close variants on you in the way Google does. There is still the option to include the close variants but it is down to you to opt in. This can be applied at ad group level or campaign level. With Bing, the power is in your hands.
Bing Ads optimisation
If you are running ads on Google and Bing, optimisation could not be easier. Does running campaigns on two platforms mean double the work? Quite simply, no. If you already have campaigns set up in Google Ads, you can import the campaigns to Bing. This means, all the keywords, ad copy, tactics and targeting can be transferred over in minimal time. Of course you can choose to have a different tactical approach on Bing but you can save yourself a lot of time importing the campaigns that you have already made a significant time-investment on.
If the campaigns are both running simultaneously, a tweak or even multiple changes made in Google can be re-imported over. Pro tip: Don’t just leave the bids and budgets as they are (unless you want to), the competitive rates of bids will be different for each platform and you should take that into account.
As with Google Ads, Bing Ads allow you to engage audiences across specific age brackets or specifically one gender. Ad copy can be tweaked for a certain audience. This can allow you to connect differently to a certain demographic. It does appear to be easier to use this targeting in Bing Ads.
An ‘Opportunities page’ offers suggestions much like the Google ‘Recommendations’ tab where the platform offers optimisation techniques, leaving it down to you on whether you want to apply them. This is the perfect method to apply optimisation should you want to differ from the import approach.
Bing Ads guide
Many of your competitors may be ignoring the power of Bing. While your competitors are not there, you can gain leverage in the market. With the three search engines that Bing owns (Bing, Yahoo and AOL), you can choose to advertise on the search engine you desire. This could be just on Yahoo and not show on AOL, for example.
Searching and discovering new keywords is almost identical to the keywords planner in Google, meaning advertisers familiar with that platform can quickly get up to speed using Bing too. You can still enter a keyword or phrase and get the search volumes and trends that you desire. The only difference is that the volume of searches is lower on Bing. On the upside, as we’ve discussed, competition is less fierce and the cost per click is typically lower.
Google analytics can still track your website and any paid activity but Bing actually has its own specific tracking tool to give you more insight and access relevant information about your campaign success. You can use the Bing Ads dashboard without having to connect any of the dots.
Ad copy in Bing and Google is identical with a character lengths for the title and description fields. The three titles have 30 characters as a limit and the two description line have a limit of 80 characters. Bing has the support tools to help you build keyword lists to prove to be cost effective. You will find yourself having any wastage on spend kept to a minimum.
Bing does mirror the auction of keywords. With the huge user base on Google and how competitive it is, you don’t have to massively drive up your keyword bid on Bing to outbid a competitor. You will discover that your spend will be lower.
Are Bing Ads worth it?
Absolutely. There is certainly an audience that Bing Ads can capture that Google Ads can’t. You shouldn’t expect Bing to bring in more customers than Google. But, it can bring in users at a lower cost. For organisations operating in a space with high competition and expensive cost per click on Google, Bing could well be a secret weapon to add to your digital armoury.
At Freshwater, we have a team of PPC gurus who are well-equipped at creating pay per click advertising campaigns that deliver great return on investment. If you’re thinking about introducing PPC ads to your digital strategy, learn more about how we can support you here.