Advantages of Implementing Bing Advertising
When discussing paid advertising on search engines, for most people, Google Ads will spring to mind. No doubt this comes from the well-known fact of Google being the leading search engine across the globe, dominating the market share. And indeed, this is true of most nations worldwide, bar certain countries such as China and Russia.
However, Microsoft’s own search engine, Bing, offers a unique opportunity to gain traffic from a different demographic, for a fraction of the cost. It also has a larger market share in some international markets when compared to the UK. So, when putting together a paid ad strategy, neglecting to include Bing Advertising could both impede your reach across the whole search market, and weaken your overall return on investment.
So what are some of the reasons you should be giving Bing Advertising a chance?
Bing Advertising Offers A Lower Cost-Per-Click
As previously mentioned, Google holds over 85% market share in most nations. Advertising on this platform, therefore, gives you enormous traffic potential. On the other hand, the average cost-per-click (CPC) for Google Ads tends to be higher than those of Bing Ads. To demonstrate this, WordStream conducted a study and found the average CPC to be 33% lower on Bing Ads compared to Google Ads.
Why is this notable? Where budgets are tighter (and even when they’re not so tight), Bing Advertising offers fantastic value for money. Lower CPCs allow greater opportunity for conversions and potential for improved reach for the same budget elsewhere.
Less Competition From Other Advertisers
The lower cost-per-click is undoubtedly a symptom of there being less competition in the auction. Many advertisers and businesses neglect to consider Bing Advertising, and as a result, there is considerably less competition on the Bing network than on Google’s.
You can really take advantage of these circumstances and attempt to grasp a greater market share within your sector than you might otherwise be able to afford or manage on other paid platforms. It also means you can reasonably expect a higher ad position than on Google, most likely for a smaller average cost.
A Stronger Hold in International Markets
When looking to expand, many companies will choose to open their operations and delivery outside the UK. For paid advertising, this can be a rewarding venture, but a potentially costly one.
Bing’s market share differs nation to nation, and given its relative cost-efficiency, choosing to go down this route when internationally expanding can be a smart move. It’s worth considering traffic and market share differences between your current advertising regions, and those further afield. When looking at the US for example, Bing & Yahoo capture 10.5% of the market share, compared to the UK’s 6.3%. You might find your business case for using Bing Advertising in international campaigns suddenly strengthens.
Targeting the Bing network Vs Syndicated Partners
Both Google and Bing have the option of disabling ads from showing up in their partner networks. They give this option since the reach and cost-per-click can vary drastically between the two.
However, Google only gives you the option to enable or disable this setting. Bing, on the other hand, gives you the choice of targeting only Bing, Yahoo! and AOL websites, targeting only their syndicated search partners, or distributing ads to both. This is advantageous as it allows you to separate campaigns only targeting Bing websites from those only targeting the syndicated network. Doing so permits you to optimise your campaigns in a granular fashion, where stats might differ drastically between the two.
Imports from Google Ads
In a lot of cases, an advertiser will create their advertising account and its structure within Google Ads as their initial venture. Bing has somewhat acknowledged this and responded by making it incredibly easy to import Google Ad campaigns into Bing, carrying across their structure and settings (bar those that are not accepted).
The process of setup on Bing when a Google Ads account is already in place, therefore, becomes incredibly easy, and a nice accompaniment to Google advertising.
In conclusion…
Given the relative inexpensive clicks on Bing, the ease of importing existing campaigns, and the continuous updates of new features, it’s difficult to argue against giving Bing Advertising a try. A key takeaway message here is that Google and Bing are similar platforms, they have their own unique respective offerings. It’s less that one is ‘better’ than the other and more that both have strengths and weaknesses. What’s for certain, is that utilising Bing Advertising will undoubtedly further your opportunity to tap markets and demographics you cannot solely achieve on Google.
Need some help with your Bing Advertising? Find out more about what we do and how Seed can support you!
