Dominating nearly 84% of the UK market, Google is often thought of as the only necessary search engine to advertise on, but that is not entirely true.
Although small, Bing shares 11% of the UK market, which is the second-largest following Google, so it is best not to just rule it out of the equation, especially now with new integrated AI technology.
Yes, it is extremely unlikely for Bing ads to surpass Google anytime soon, however, the search engine is growing steadily. Its functionality is very similar to its competitor and the search results are nice and clear.
If you have never advertised on Bing before, don’t worry, now is time to give it a try. First, we will examine the search engine and then understand how you can start advertising for yourself.
How Do Bing Ads Work?
Bing is the child of Microsoft and Bing Ads allows anyone with a budget to advertise on the platform.
Just like Google and its advertising capabilities, both search engines allow you to advertise on their partnering networks to ensure you reach your target audience.
Partner networks of Bing are sites such as Ask.com, Bloomberg, Cnet, DuckDuckGo, Ecosia, and many more. Understand that they’re not owned directly by Bing or Microsoft, but in a partnership that allows Bing Ads to cast their net out further.
Working much the same as Google in terms of its layout, Bing search results show Shopping Ads directly below the search bar and Search Ads further below, followed by the organic search results.
After analyzing the image above, it’s clear to see that Bing Ads are almost identical to Google Ads, which is not necessarily a negative thing. It uses the established and recognisable format to ensure that users trust what they’re being shown. It also allows you as a business to still showcase all necessary information!
Bing Ads and the process sounding them are so similar to Google Ads, that the Bing advertising interface has an option to ‘sync all Ads campaigns to Bing’, supporting your transition even further.
It’s really that easy!
Are They Expensive?
While Bing archives a fairly low search volume compared to Google, Its advertising functions work extremely well.
As you can imagine, online advertising budgets can fluctuate, so a concrete figure is hard to arrive at, however, it’s a fact that Bing uses a smaller budget to achieve its results. For instance, it uses 20%-30% less of the user’s budget than Google Ads does to achieve the same results, which is pretty amazing for an underdog with considerably less market share. The average cost per click (CPC) for Google Ads is around $0.66/£0.52, across all industries, compared to Bings $0.46/ £0.36, which is substantially less.
LinkedIn is a popular method of advertising also considered by many businesses, but not against Bing Ads, they both do completely different things - at least they used to. In 2018 Bing Ads introduced LinkedIn profile targeting, which is a huge functionality that enables businesses to advertise on LinkedIn through a 3rd party site.
LinkedIn is renowned for its high advertising prices that are justified through its detailed audience targeting. However, you can now receive this same service from a third party advertiser such as Bing Ads for far cheaper.
In fact, LinkedIn’s CPC averages around £1.59, which is fairly easy to compete with give how expensive it is.
How To Run Your First Bing Ad
1) Create Your Bing Ads Account
First, you need to head over to Bing Ads and create your account. It’s a really easy process that won’t take up much of your time at all.
First, you will need to create an Outlook email account if you don’t already have one. Then You will be required to enter some basic account details such as your name, phone number, preferred currency, and time zone to optimize your Bing Ads account.
2) Import / Create Your Campaign
As mentioned earlier, somewhere in the process of creating your Bing Ads account you are asked whether you would like to import your campaign from Google Ads, well now is the time.
At this point, you can either import a campaign from Google ads or create an entirely new one from scratch, whatever works best for you.
Here are the steps to create an ad campaign from scratch:
1. Pick a campaign name
2. Choose a language
3. Decide the location you want to target
4. Research your keywords (Broad, Phrase, and Exact match)
5. Write your ad copy
6. Set your budget
3) Go Live
That’s right, it’s time to go live!
Once you’ve created your campaign and finalized it, you have the ability to go live, but hold fire for a second. It’s best to go live when your audience is most active online, say in the morning when they wake up, or in the evening, it will be specific to you.
Look at your social media insights and previous ad analytics to determine the best time to go live with your Bing Ads.
Conclusion
Although Google dominates the majority of the market, don’t rule Bing Ads out, they are still home to millions of users. Over 10% of the UK market doesn’t sound like a lot, but that’s 10.43% of over 66 million people, so don’t underestimate Bings power.
The truth is Bing Ads works in almost exactly the same way as Google Ads, which makes it extremely easy to start running Bing Ads today. Not only are they simple to set up, but you can import campaigns straight from Google Ads - you have no excuse not to.
Here are some key points covered in this article:
1. Bing Ads work in a very similar way to Google Ads
2. Bing Ads are far cheaper than Google Ads and LinkedIn Ads
3. Bing Ads can LinkedIn profile target
4. Setting up your Bing Ads account is really simple
Now you know the ins and outs of Bing Ads, and how user friendly they really are, why not try them for yourself, it will be worth it - trust me!
