Let’s face it, we ALL want higher quality paid traffic and more conversions. What if I told you that you could lower costs per acquisition and increase your overall conversions?
By using Bing Ads, you can take advantage of lower CPA’s and CPC’s than Google AdWords because of less competition. In some cases, you can even better reach your desired target audience.
As of early 2016, Bing has roughly 21% of the search engine market share compared to Google’s 64%. Here are 6 compelling reasons why you shouldn’t ignore Bing’s 21%:
- You Might Be Missing Out On Your Target Demographic
Some audiences are simply better to target on Bing. If your target audience is not very tech savvy, there’s a high chance that Bing is their default search engine. This is especially true for PC buyers, where Bing is usually set as the default search engine from factory. An estimated 62.4 million units of PCs were shipped out in Q2 2016, let that number sink in.
There’s a good chance a few million of the buyers who bought some of those PC’s never bothered to change their default search engine. Think of the millions of users you may be missing out on by ignoring pay-per-click advertising on Bing.
You can also review your analytics platform and check the sources of your organic traffic. If a sizeable percentage is coming from Bing (5%>), then it might be further proof that Bing Ads is where you want to invest. This would indicate a lot of people are searching your site or content via Bing.
Your target demographic is very important to consider when deciding whether or not to advertise on Bing. If you’re targeting millennials, chances are they’re using Google. But if you’re targeting baby boomers, Bing might be a great place to expand your pay-per-click campaigns.
Nonetheless, thanks to lower average CPCs and how easy it is to directly import campaigns from Google AdWords, it might be worth trying Bing Ads alongside Google AdWords regardless of what you think your target audience is.
- Pay Less for Competitive Keywords
If you’ve ever managed campaigns in the healthcare, legal or higher education verticals, you know how expensive CPC’s can be on Google. Many businesses and agencies overlook advertising on Bing because they think there isn’t enough search volume or that its’ market share is too small to make a difference.
Wrong!
Having 21% of the search engine market share means that there are billions of search queries on Bing every day that include keywords you want to target.
Often times however, you’ll have lower CPCs on Bing because there isn’t as much competition battling over a few hotly contested keywords. This means a lower CPA for you and a better ROI in the end.
It’s hard to give exact estimates of how much lower your CPCs will be on Bing, but on average we’ve seen a decrease of 15-25% depending on the specific keyword and location being targeted. You won’t really know for certain until you try, though.
- You Can Import Your Campaigns from AdWords
That’s right! You shouldn’t overlook Bing Ads because you dread a tedious and time-consuming setup process. Simply import your campaigns from Google AdWords with Bing’s migration tool and be up and running in just a few minutes—even if you have several campaigns!
However, that’s not to say you should set it and forget it. Bing uses slightly different ad formats and ad extension requirements. This means certain lengths of ad copy might not work well in the format that Bing ads are displayed in, albeit it’s very similar to Google’s. Double check your imported ads and make sure they look good on Bing.
This should be much less of a problem moving forward as Bing rolls out extended text ads just as Google did just a few months ago. And as an added bonus, the reporting and layout of Bing ads is very analogous to AdWords, so learning your way around the UI will be a snap.
- Product Listing Ads
If you’re getting good results from Google Shopping, why not try Bing Shopping? We all know how popular PLAs have become and the impact that they can have on revenue. Bing Shopping is very similar to Google Shopping, so you shouldn’t have much trouble launching your Bing Shopping campaigns.
Just like with standard text ads, you can make thousands more in revenue at a fraction of the cost that you might be spending on Google Shopping.
Overall, average PLA CPCs tend to be lower on Bing as opposed to Google Shopping. Less competition means that you can bid lower than you would on Google Shopping and still remain competitive on Bing SERPs.
We’ve had experiences with clients spending less than $2,500 a month on PLAs, bringing in over $25,000 in total conversion value!
- Better Mobile Targeting
Mobile ad targeting on Google is very limited. With Bing, you can choose to target specific devices based on their device type and OS. You can also use bid adjustments with a much larger range between -20% to 300% on these mobile device types.
If your target demographic specifically favors a particular mobile OS, or if your product is focused on mobile, you can serve your target demographic with highly targeted ads on Bing more so than on Google.
Particular demographics tend to favor certain search engines, and Bing allows you to take full advantage of this.
- Search Network Demographics Targeting
Wish you could target a specific demographic with your text ads just like you can with Google Display network? Bing gives you that ability. Tailoring your ads with specific messaging and language to target different demographics can be a powerful way to increase click-through-rates and ultimately conversions.
You can choose from the age and gender demographic options to better target your text search ads. What’s even sweeter is that Google still doesn’t have this advanced targeting option for their search ads.
Just Try It!
If you’re still on the fence about Bing Ads, create an account and set up a couple of test campaigns in order to get a feel for what the bids are like and what kind of search volume you can expect.
Depending on your target audience, you might be pleasantly surprised with the results you’ll get.
