Today we are doing an overview on the features inside Bing ads and comparing some of these features to AdWords. I will start off with why I use Bing ads then go into some of the differences between Bing ads and AdWords and finish over with a light walkthrough of the Bing Ads Platform.
Nearly all businesses who start doing PPC tend to start on AdWords because it’s very well known and Google has the clear majority of the market share. The downside to this is AdWords is more expensive and in probably about 80% of my campaigns Bing ads actually has a higher conversion rate so it makes a lot of sense to get start on Bing ads first over AdWords.
What I normally end up doing is creating the Ads inside Speed PPC which I have mentioned before and then place that ads into AdWords Editor. From there I upload to my AdWords account and then inside Bing Ads I then import from AdWords. In this manner I only have to setup the campaigns once and importing in Bing Ads is really straight forward.
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Why Use Bing Ads?
Bing ads has 31% of the U.S. market share for search. This number includes the Bing Powered sites such as Yahoo, and this probably also includes data from Iphones because Siri uses Bing as it’s search engine.
From my personal experience with Bing ads you will get a 30% lower Cost Per Click (CPC) give or take 10% and most likely have a higher conversion rate as well. At the end of the day I am normally 50% more profitable on Bing ads then I am on AdWords.
While Bing Ads does say they have 31% of the market share I would say the volume seems to be closer to 10% the volume that you get on AdWords. So while the volume can be substantially less the overall ROI more than makes up for this.
I personally Find Bing Ads to be more transparent in their operations over AdWords as well. AdWords has gotten a ton better in just the last year but Bing ads has had the ability to call them up and speak or chat live with a representative for years now. Basically if you have a problem Bing ads can help you solve it fast.
For more information on search demographics check out – http://ads.bingads.microsoft.com/en-us/audience
I do want to say that the overall audience on Bing ads tends to convert better. By default Windows operating system uses the web browser Edge which has Bing as the default search engine. Before Edge was called Internet Explorer.
My parents for instance are great examples of what happens. They get their PC turn it on and connect to the internet and never change any default settings. Both use Bing and use Bing predominantly. I ran into this all the time when repairing computers. Those in the older demographic where just using Bing or yahoo. Because of this I think that is why I tend to get a higher conversion rate because I’m promoting to an older audience that probably have a little more money to spend.
Bing Ads and AdWords Comparison
At the end of the day both companies do the same thing. They provide search results. I won’t go into who’s search results are better but I will try and cover some of the quick differences.
Demographic Bid adjusting
With Bing Ads you can increase your bids based on Gender and Age. This is something AdWords says they are coming out within the next year but Bing Ads has been doing it for a long time already.
If you know your customer Avatar and they fit in with a certain age range then you can have a lower default CPC bid but bid adjust on a gender or age group.
Device Bid Adjust
AdWords just recently has allowed you to bid adjust on tablet and PC traffic along with Mobile traffic which you could do for a while now inside Bing Ads. The gap is now closed but it’s worth mentioning
Bing Ads has had the ability to bid adjust on mobile as well as Tablet traffic for a long while. You can only negative bid adjust by -20% on tablet but at least they gave you some option.
Generally a Lower CPC
I talked a little about this already. Generally I see a 30% cheaper cost per click give or take 10% on Bing Ads.
More Control on the Ad group Level and Campaign Level.
Bing Ads Allow you to adjust the time zone for each campaign while AdWords has a single account time zone. This is not a big issue for most small businesses but if you do a lot of international targeting like me it’s hard at time trying to adjust manually inside each campaign.
Inside each ad group you can set a different location, ad scheduling and language as well as Network/Display targeting.
More Control Over Search Partner Targeting
With AdWords it’s all or nothing. You can include search partners or exlude them. You have ZERO clue who these partners are and it’s impossible to optimize for search partners inside AdWords.
With Bing ads you can include search partners and run reports and see EXACTLY what search partner sites are converting and which ones are not. From there you can negative out the websites in the Website Exclusions section. When you run a report you will need to include the “Website URL (publisher)” to see what sites are showing your search based ads.
Image Extensions
Something relatively new inside Bing Ads is the option to have image extensions. I have not fully tested this out and only have it on a half dozen campaigns at the moment. I get very little impressions on the image extensions but it’s still very interesting and something AdWords is not doing yet.
Quality Score
You have two different levels of quality score inside Bing ads. 1 at the keyword level just like with AdWords and the other is at the Ad group Level. I still only focus on QS at the keyword level so I can’t say this is a benefit but if you group large sets of keywords together this can be helpful.
Exact Search Query Token
I know many small businesses do not need to use tokens but I come from the affiliate side of things and more often then not I can’t place a pixel on the confirmation page. Because of this I need to pass the exact keyword that is leading to a sale into my tracking program. Bingads allows you to use {QueryString} which tells you the exact searched keyword.
Negative Keywords
Bing ads does not use broad negative keywords but exact and phrase. This works out to be close to the same thing but worth mentioning.
Area’s where Bingads is still behind
Content Network / Display Network
The content network on Bingads really sucks. Quality is good but there are no tokens you can pass to know where a sale came from. If you are a small business this is not a big deal as you control your site and can place the conversion pixel in place. This is good news for smaller businesses as affiliates like me do not play much with Bing Content ads so the market really is open.
Call Tracking
AdWords is leaps ahead of Bing ads in terms of call tracking. Bing takes longer to provision you a number. The reporting is also way off. I have a really hard time tracking sales calls inside the Bing ads platform. It’s doable but you won’t get the same accuracy as with AdWords.
Conversion Pixels and Custom Audiences
Bing ads went through an update last year that honestly is better for Small businesses but made it a lot harder for affiliates like me to track sales. This is still a great move because it’s small businesses that bing ads should focus on.
Bing ads uses UET (Univerasal Event Tracking) . You place one code on your website and you setup rules for when the pixel should fire. This is most likely an order confirmation page or Thankyou page of some kind. This works similar to how the new Facebook pixel works. Still the options are very limited.
With this being said it’s still a lot harder to setup custom audiences and get the conversion pixels in place. You have less options and the system overall is bulky and complicated. AdWords has a strong lead on Bing ads in this department with the introduction of Google Tags
We like to think of AdWords as being way ahead of Bing in terms of technology and features. This is true in some cases but in many areas Bing has lead the charge and has allowed for a more open advertising platform with clearer rules and far more support and help for advertisers.
Bing ads Walk through
This is a bit of a copout but I’m going to refer you to the video in this guide. It’s far easier to just go through the video.
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