Microsoft Ads (Bing Ads): ad types, settings, and analytics
Microsoft Ads is an advertising platform that allows you to advertise on the Bing search engine and its partner sites. Bing is Microsoft’s search engine, less popular than Google in the Slovak market.
Despite Google’s dominant position, Microsoft Ads can be an effective way for some companies to reach their target audience and increase their online visibility.
It is a PPC (pay-per-click) platform where the fundamental advantage is that you only pay for clicks on your ad.
Number of Bing users
In Slovakia, Bing is a minority search engine in terms of search. Google dominates the market. According to some estimates, approximately 5-10% of internet users use Bing and its partner sites.
The business segment or the market influences search traffic on a particular platform. Different industries and market segments have different needs and preferences, which may reflect how and when users search for information online.
Bing user statistics and artificial intelligence (AI)
In February 2023, more than 1.1 billion people per month visited the Bing search engine. Following the launch of Bing Chat AI, the number of daily active users has climbed to 100 million, signaling the service’s growing popularity.
According to Microsoft statistics, 67.65% of Bing users are men, and 32.35% are women. People between 25 and 34 use it the most (30.70%), followed by the 18 to 20-year-old group (22.17%).
Source: https://meetanshi.com/blog/bing-statistics/#:~:text=According%20to%20Microsoft%20Bing%20usage,900%20 million%20 searches%20 per%20 day
As a point of interest, the average age of a Bing user in May 2022 was 45 years old.
Source: https://www.keystaragency.com/bing-ads-statistics/
Searches via computers
Bing search engine users are predominantly computer users, so ads on the search network are more likely to appear across computing devices. This is also due to the default setting of the Bing search engine on Windows devices.
Currently, 54.6% of visits come from desktop devices globally, while 45.4% of visitors come from mobile devices. In Slovakia, of course, these numbers vary.
Is it worth investing in Microsoft Ads?
Definitely yes. Competition in this advertising system is still shallow, so the cost per click is significantly lower than the more commonly used Google Ads.
Although a 5-10% share of the search market in Slovakia sounds like a small number, it represents tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of users. This is a significant group that should be noticed, as less competition can make using Bing for some businesses’ advertising campaigns a more effective strategy.
You may be surprised by the results of Bing usage statistics in the US market:
- 7.5 billion monthly PC searches
- 142 million unique users on PC
- 37.7% PC market share
Types of Microsoft Ads Campaign Targets
For a successful campaign, it is crucial to have a clear objective. By setting this goal, Microsoft Advertising will help you achieve optimal results and recommend the most appropriate features for your campaign.
Types of ads you can create with Microsoft Ads
Microsoft Ads offers us to create a wide variety of ad types. Each ad appears in a different context and serves different styles of communication.
Some of the most commonly used ad types include:
Responsive search ads
Responsive search ads simplify ad creation by allowing you to provide up to 15 headlines and 4 descriptions, from which Microsoft Advertising will automatically create and test the most effective combinations. Ineffective variations are no longer displayed, and the best ones are shown repeatedly, which can improve the performance of your campaign.
Dynamic search ads
Dynamic search ads automatically create and target relevant ads based on your website content, reducing your workload and adapting to new queries to increase conversions. This type of advertising is very similar to responsive advertising.
Content ads (Audience ads)
Microsoft Audience Ads is a native advertising service that drives traffic to advertisers through non-search placements on various devices and sites such as MSN, Outlook.com, and Microsoft Edge.
Product ads
Product ads include custom images from product catalogs created in the Microsoft Merchant Center and specific promotional text, pricing, and retailer details. This type of ad offers a visual and detailed view of the products shown, which can effectively increase interest and interaction from potential customers.
Importing ads from Google Ads to Microsoft Ads
If you have created successful campaigns in your Google Ads account, importing them into the Microsoft Ads interface is possible.
With just a few clicks, you can easily import your campaigns from Google and advertise on Bing within minutes.
Creating a search campaign
- In your Microsoft Ads account, proceed to the campaign level, where you select Create:
- The second step involves selecting the campaign goals you want to achieve. In our case, we will choose website traffic – Visits to my website:
- We will select the Search ads option and move on to the next step:
- In the campaign settings, the first point is to set the budget, title, country targeting, or regions:
- Search campaigns are displayed based on search queries, i.e., keywords. In this step, you choose words relevant to your website or the service or goods you offer:
- The sixth step to take care of. Creating the actual ad texts, descriptions and adding extensions that will be displayed in Bing:
- The last step consists of setting budgets, adding payment methods, and setting up billing information. And the search advertising is up and running.
Measuring results and setting up analytics
For Microsoft Ads campaigns to work correctly, you will need the correct measurement setup.
The advantage is that it’s easy to set up directly in the Google Tag Manager interface, just like other ad systems.
The most important part of the measurement is the UET tag (Universal Event Tracking). This code is added to a web page to track visitor activity and allow for more effective targeting of ad campaigns. This code is similar to the Base Tag in the Google Ads interface.
Deploying the UET Tag
The actual installation on the website is not complicated.
The option to automatically assign the tag to your site via Google Tag Manager can be done entirely automatically. You log in with the email you use to use Tag Manager, and within a few minutes, you have a working UET tracking code ready to go.
Checking the correct settings is easy. Microsoft has a Google Chrome browser extension will allow you to check the presence and correctness of your tag setup and conversions.
Conclusion
Microsoft Ads offers effective and low-cost advertising options, despite Bing being less popular than Google in the Slovak market. Increased visibility, less competition, and lower advertising costs can greatly benefit businesses looking for alternatives to advertising on Google.
The variety of ad formats, the ability to import from Google Ads, and the ease of tracking results through UET tags make Microsoft Ads an opportunity to expand your online portfolio.