Is It Time to Invest in Bing Ads for Search Engine Marketing?
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When most of us think of search engines, we immediately conjure images of Google’s iconic logo. It’s been the undisputed king platform of SEM for decades, and it will be for many years to come.
Today, Google boasts a whopping 92% share of the worldwide search engine market. However, it’s not the only search engine worth considering, especially when it comes to paid marketing opportunities.
Bing often takes a backseat in companies’ advertising strategies, but with nearly 900 million daily searches, this search engine’s ad potential shouldn’t be overlooked.
If you’re already using Google Ad to drive traffic to your site, Bing Ads can serve as a powerful supplement to your campaign. In this post, let’s dive into the untapped benefits of this secondary search engine, which is perhaps the best-kept secret for all PPC campaigns.
Search Engines in the United States
Source: Oberlo
Before we launch into a detailed discussion of Bing Ads, we should take a more in-depth look at the search engine market share distribution within the United States.
According to Oberlo, Google still holds a firm grip on the majority of the share with:
- 88.52% of the US search engine market share
- 86.22% of the US desktop search engine market
- 94.31% of all US mobile search queries
- 77% of all US tablet search queries
Both globally and within the United States, it’s clear that Google remains unchallenged as the king of search engines. It would take years and nearly impossible circumstances for another contender to dethrone this search engine entirely.
Bing!
Despite Google’s unwavering lead, we shouldn’t ignore the runner-up, Bing. Although this search engine only holds about 6% of the US market share, that’s still millions of local searches conducted every day.
If your business is based in the United States, it’s important to understand that 85% of Bing users are in the United States. The search engine is also installed on more than 1.5 billion devices.
Furthermore, 69% of Bing searches involve well-known brands and websites. More than two-thirds of all Bing searches are related to big brands, according to search engine stats. Here are 5 of the most popular terms and their search volumes:
- Facebook: 14,350,000.
- YouTube: 11,250,000.
- Google: 9,490,000.
- Gmail: 6,480,000.
- how to get help in windows 10: 6,420,000.
Additionally, Bing is a part of the larger “Microsoft Search Network,” which powers roughly 37.2 percent of US desktop searches and connects advertisers with up to 47 million searchers that Google cannot reach. The Microsoft Search Network has more than 140 million unique searchers, so if you’re skipping out on Bing and other Microsoft elements, you’re literally missing millions of opportunities.
Should You Invest in Bing Ads?
If you haven’t already guessed our opinion, we believe the answer is yes – there’s a wealth of untapped opportunities within Bing Ads. Not only does it offer a much less saturated market than Google, it’s an extremely robust search engine with a pretty loyal backing.
Still, we won’t blame you if this is your first time considering expanding your ad budget to encompass Bing options. Let’s take a look at your marketing options with the second-most popular search engine.
Types of Bing Ads
In many ways, Bing Ad campaigns are very similar to Google Ads campaigns. Your objectives will be more or less the same: you want the ads to generate clicks, increase conversions, and pull in the right kind of traffic to your website.
The only markedly big difference is that you’ll be targeting a new audience with a smaller, more niche investment. Bing Ads allows for highly precise targeting strategies, which means you can be extremely purposeful with your advertising budget.
As of 2021, there are three main kinds of Bing Ads you’ll encounter:
1) Bing Search Ads
Your first option is a Bing Search Ad, which is nearly identical to a Google Search Ad. Most PPC marketers will be well-versed in this style of advertisement. You’ll create a specific ad around a product/service, then bid on relevant keywords.
This will cause your content to appear in the “Ads” section of Bing search results, just like it would in Google’s. It’s an eye-catching method that offers great value for your investment.
2) Bing Shopping Ads
Your second option works similarly to Google’s shopping ads, but actually offers a 45% higher CTR. Bing shopping advertisements present an opportunity to showcase your product with engaging details – images, prices, and brief descriptions.
To run these ads, you’ll visit the Bing Merchant Center, create an online store, and begin adding your chosen products to the catalog. Once the store is set up and the items have been added, you can control the hierarchy view and choose to push different products, depending on what you’re paying Bing.
3) Bing Remarketing Ads
Remarketing ads specifically target customers who have already visited your website – then left without finalizing their purchase. According to the Baymard Institute, roughly 70% of all consumers abandon a shopping cart before checking out – which means that remarketing ads are crucial, no matter what industry you’re in.
These high-value customers might not have decided to pull the trigger, but they have already expressed an interest in your products/services – and that’s powerful.
To set up a Bing remarketing ad, you’ll need to create a Universal Event Tracking (UET) tag for your website, then add it to each of your pages. The UET keeps track of visitor activity, which then allows you to target those who abandon their carts, as well as other audiences and leads.
After that, you can create a remarketing list associated with specific visitor behaviors, then optimize bids, keywords, or entire ads.
The Biggest Reasons to Invest in Bing Ads
Now that we’ve gone through the three primary Bing Ad campaign types, here’s why you should consider incorporating them into your current marketing strategies.
1) Migrating from Google Ads to Bing Ads is Easy!
This is really a win-win situation. Bing Ads intentionally makes it simple to run continued efforts and mitigate campaigns. You’ve already done the work with Google Ads – now, you can take those same ads you created and run them on Bing, without painstakingly re-building your strategy.
In fact, Bing Ads offers an automated system. Advertisers can schedule their ad imports on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis, as well as make changes to their copy, budgets, and extensions. They can also import other option selections, such as location targeting, ad grouping, bids, and more.
There will be some details that need to be tweaked to fit perfectly with Bing’s campaigns, but in general, the ability to import your current ad campaign will save you a great deal of time and effort.
2) The ROI Cannot Be Ignored
According to cost comparisons done by Flex Leads, Microsoft offers the best ROI when it comes to search engine ads. Not only are Bing Ads less expensive than Google Ads campaigns, but they also offer a strong return on your paid media investments.
Some studies have also found that, when compared to the average Google users, Bing users are:
- More educated
- A little bit older
- Often wealthier
These desirable demographics also contribute to the likelihood of a high return on investment. You may not want to divert as much money into Bing Ads as you do Google Ads, but the dollars you do spend with Bing could reap a big reward.
3) Bing Provides Fantastic, Actionable Data
Another reason we highly recommend using Bing Ads? They’re informative. The Bing Ads Marketplace Trends site is a wonderful source of information on the latest marketing methods and activities. If you want to plan campaigns that gain traction, both with Bing and with Google, these metrics and reports can be extremely useful.
4) Bing Ads Intelligence is Very Robust
There’s a lot you can do with Bing Ads – more than the average marketer probably knows.
For instance, did you know you can fine-tune campaigns with everything from dynamic text to negative keywords? Easily insert certain keywords, customize copy, and direct users to specific landing pages – then fine-tune your campaigns as they run.
Additionally, Bing Ads offers highly specific targeting. Hone in on the exact audience you want to reach based on a wide range of variables, including location, device type, and important demographics.
As you run all of your Bing Ad campaigns, you’ll have the chance to use Bing’s intuitive performance reports to understand your ad groups, keyword performance, search queries, destination URLs, and much more. These insights are crucial when it comes to continually optimizing your campaigns.
5) There Are Many Traffic Sources for Bing
Bing is on more than 1.5 billion devices.
Source: logitech harmony
According to Microsoft, Bing is on more devices across the world than iOS. This should come as no surprise as Microsoft also runs Windows, the most popular OS on the planet. Guess which search engine comes with it?
Bing draws traffic from many sources that could be highly relevant to your products and/or services. For instance, Bing powers the primary search for operating systems on:
- Devices with Microsoft’s Cortana
- Amazon’s Kindles
- Xbox Consoles
- Amazon Echo
- MSN Search
- Windows Live Search
By skipping Bing Ads opportunities, you void the chance to reach these select audiences. If you want your campaigns to be successful, you should cast a wide net over a large audience, including those who aren’t using Google 24/7.
Ready to Get Started?
There’s never been a better time to tap into the hidden power of Bing Ads. Audience numbers have continued to grow, and in comparison to Google Ads campaigns, the competition is still very low.
If you’re ready to launch your first Bing Ads campaign, let us know.
Our team at Foxxr is here to help you with it all, from determining how much to spend on Bing Ads to monitoring your ROI. Leave a comment below or shoot us a message online.