Bing: Overview of the advertising system

Bing Ads is an advertising network from Microsoft that appeared in 2009. Despite the popularity of the giant search engines, Bing still gets up to 30% of the North American and partially European market, ranking second after Google in the US.

As of 2024, more than 55 million Americans use the Bing search engine. Therefore, if you plan to enter the American market, you should consider this powerful advertising tool. Bing is not only an alternative to Google, but also an important part of your marketing strategy. Bing Ads can help you reach your target audience by leveraging the power of the Microsoft Bing platform. In addition, Bing integrates bing chat, which is a part of artificial intelligence that provides additional functionality and features for users.

Advantages and disadvantages of Bing Ads

Despite the fact that the Bing affiliate network together with Yahoo occupies only 5% of the online advertising market, it has many advantages:

1. Large amount of traffic: More than 50 million regular users, 85% of whom live in the United States. These are solvent consumers, as most of them are adult Americans (over 70% are aged 35+). 38% of these users have a family income of at least $100 thousand per year.
   
2. Low competition: The average price of a lead is two times lower than Google’s, which means less competition. The cost per click can be as low as 40% of a similar ad on Google.
   
3. User-friendly interface: Bing’s interface is very similar to Google’s account and search results, which makes it easy for users to navigate. In addition, users can conveniently access Bing chat directly from Microsoft Edge.
   
4. Import campaigns from Google Ads: After registration, the system offers to transfer campaigns from Google Ads. To do this, just click on the corresponding button, select your Google account and import the necessary campaigns.
   
5. Extended ad serving capabilities: Bing Ads allows you to display a single ad at the bottom and top of a Bing search page at the same time.

Despite these advantages, it’s important to consider some of the disadvantages of Bing Ads:

1. Limited number of countries for targeting: Although Bing can be beneficial not only for US residents, the full list of countries for targeting barely exceeds 30. At the same time, some of them have less traffic than Google Ads.
   
2. Language restriction: Bing supports only 12 languages, and Ukrainian is not among them.
   
3. Low number of analysis tools and placement types:

• Bing uses fewer performance metrics compared to Google Ads, and according to marketers, they are less functional.
• Google supports display ads, search ads, video ads, map ads, and in-app ads, while Bing supports display and search ads only.

While Bing’s search engine has significant potential, its market share remains significantly smaller than Google Bing. Nevertheless, Bing Ads is a great opportunity for businesses looking to optimize their advertising spend and reach a paying audience.

How Microsoft Bing Ads works

The principle of Bing Ads is similar to Google Ads and is based on the PPC model:

1. Bid setting: Advertiser defines bids for keywords, ads, and ad groups.
2. User search: Users searching for products or services.
3. Advertising Display: According to the entered queries, the advertisements configured by the advertiser are displayed.
4. Pay per click: The advertiser pays for each click on their ad.

Thus, Bing Ads works on the basis of rates and allows you to show ads to the target audience, paying only for real clicks. Microsoft Bing Ads provides an opportunity to effectively use your advertising budget by targeting potential customers who are actively looking for your products or services.

Types of advertising in Bing Ads

Dynamic search campaigns (Dynamic Search Ads)

DSA or dynamic search ads are a type of advertising campaign where the system compares the user’s request with the content of your site. If they match, the system automatically creates an ad and selects a destination page. The advertiser only fills in the headline text. Dynamic Search Ads can also integrate with Bing Chat, allowing users to chat and ask questions directly from search results.

Components of Dynamic Search Ads:

• Header
• Ad text
• URL of your site

DSAs are best suited for brands with a large product range or for those who don’t want to manually conduct keyword research.

Expanded Text Ads

This is a typical PPC ad that appears in search results. Unlike dynamic ads, you need to write all the titles and descriptions yourself.

Components of expanded ads:

• Header
• Ad text
• Page URL

Advertisements for installing applications (App Install Ads)

Similar to full text ads, but direct customers to Google Play or the Apple App Store.

Components of app install ads:

• Title
• Ad text
• Button to download the application

These ads are only available on iPhone and Android devices.

Microsoft Advertising in Bing Smart Search

Suitable for e-commerce and service businesses, currently available only in the US, UK, France, Germany, and Canada. Smart Ads appear in the Start Menu on computers running Windows 8.1 and later.

The components of smart ads:

• Display of your landing page
• Title
• Ad text
• Links to related web pages

Multimedia Ads

Uses images and other visual elements to entice users to click.

Components of multimedia advertising:

• Images
• Title
• Ad text
• Link to the target webpage
• Call to action (CTA) button

Product Ads

These are product listings that Bing shows to users searching for related products.

Components of product listings:

• Product name
• Product price (and all applicable discounts/promotions)
• Seller
• Product image

Product ads are ideal for e-commerce brands. To run this type of ad, you need to have a product feed from the Microsoft Merchant Center store.

Microsoft Audience Ads

Microsoft Audience Ads are native ads that Bing serves in articles on websites that are part of the Microsoft Audience Network, a media placement service provided by Microsoft Advertising.

MSAN enables advertisers to reach their target audience across a variety of online platforms and sites, including the Microsoft website, apps, and partner platforms.

Audience ads fit seamlessly into the page content and include:

• Title
• Image
• Ad text
• Link to the landing page

Microsoft Audience Ads can also use Bing Chat for tasks such as summarizing online content and comparing options.

Bing Ads uses artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to target ads to an audience based on consumer intent. They analyze users’ search history, current browsing session data, and demographic information to understand these intentions and serve the most relevant ads possible.

Registering an account

To advertise on Bing, go to the official Microsoft Advertising page and click the sign up button. During registration, the system will prompt you to create your first ad campaign.

1. Enter your email: Enter the email address to which the account will be registered.
2. Create a password: Create a strong password.
3. Enter personal information: Enter your first name, last name, and date of birth.
4. Captcha: Next, Microsoft will ask you to complete one of two verification options:</span
   • Recognize the captcha picture: Look carefully at the picture and match the object on the right with the direction the hand is pointing in the picture on the left.
   • Solve the audio captcha: You will receive a task in which you need to understand who or what is the source of the sound.
5. Verify your email: Check your email and confirm your registration.

That’s it! You now have a Microsoft Ads account and are ready to start running Bing ads.

Create an ad campaign

Once you’ve verified your account, you can create an ad campaign. At this point, Bing will offer to import your campaigns from Google Ads or Facebook. We’ll go over creating a campaign from scratch to get a better feel for the local functionality. You can skip this step by clicking “Skip campaign creation”.

Creating a campaign

• Click “Create campaign”.

Campaign name and budget

• Enter the name of the campaign.
• In the budget window, set the daily budget and the maximum CPC.

Select region and audience

• Select the region and target audience to show ads to.
• Please note that Ukrainian is not in the list, so we recommend choosing English.
• It is important to choose the language that will be used in creatives, otherwise the system may block the display of ads.

Creating an ad group

• Enter the name of the group.
• Enter relevant keywords.
• In the box on the right, you can enter a competitor’s website to get examples of related keywords.

Efficiency assessment

• Pay attention to the “Estimated Performance” window. It will display an approximate estimate of the campaign performance with the current settings.

Following these steps, you will be able to successfully create an advertising campaign on Bing and customize it to achieve maximum results.

Conclusion

Bing is a powerful tool for advertisers looking for alternatives to Google Ads. Given its significant market share in North America and easy integration with other advertising platforms, Bing can be an important part of your marketing strategy. Its intuitive interface, support for dynamic search ads, multimedia ads, and product ads make it attractive to businesses in a variety of industries.