Unlocking Success with Microsoft Advertising: A Game-Changer for B2B and B2C Companies?
Last update: 29 May 2023 at 10:20 am
2.33/5Microsoft Advertising promises that you can reach 7,5 million people when signing up. It seems easy, and signing up is free. Pay-per-click advertising has been around for a long time and is a successful marketing method for many businesses, but is Microsoft Advertising the best option for your business? Let’s find out.
History of Microsoft Advertising
If you’re unfamiliar with Microsoft Advertising, you might recognize some other names in the company’s long history. Until 2006, Overture or Yahoo! supplied all the ads you saw on MSN in return for a small percentage of the fees.
Microsoft built adCenter Analytics software and launched it in November 2007 while partnering with Yahoo!. In late 2012, Microsoft renamed adCenter to Bing Ads, and the two companies renamed the alliance the Yahoo! Bing Network.
In June 2015, Microsoft and AOL became partners, where AOL took over the sale of all ad space on different Microsoft platforms in nine countries. In 2019, the company rebranded Bing Ads to Microsoft Advertising. Microsoft Advertising is running on Bing, one of the big three search engines available to browse the internet.
Microsoft made all these changes to make a better product to help their customers manage their campaigns better. Ease of use is essential to Microsoft Advertising features, considering that most people prefer using Google Ads due to the company’s sheer size.
How Does It Work?
Microsoft Advertising works similarly to Google Ads. You can purchase advertisements that will display if users search for specific keywords. The company uses the maximum amount you’re willing to pay per click and the click-through rate to determine how often they display your ad.
These tasks can prove to be quite tricky and time-consuming. Still, professionals trained to manage your campaigns and ads on various search engines in a PPC Marketing Agency in India, for example, can help.
Microsoft Advertising allows ads on both desktop and mobile devices. You can also decide whether you want your ads displayed for only local or global searches. A huge advantage to using Microsoft Ads is that you can easily import your Google Ad campaigns into its platform.
According to Microsoft, signing up for the service is free, and you can start advertising regardless of your budget. You’ll only pay when someone clicks on your ad. If there are no clicks, there’s no charge. You also can manage your budget on a daily basis. Microsoft advertising allows you to test your keywords and see how good the timing is, to maximize your investments.
Microsoft Advertising offers various packages for any business. You can focus on driving traffic to your website or get foot traffic in the form of people visiting your shop in person. You can look into multiple solutions before deciding if this is your best platform.
It’s important to note that the service is called Microsoft Advertising, while the search engine is still named Bing. So whenever someone uses Bing to search, your relevant ad will appear in the search results.
How Effective Is Microsoft Advertising?
Even though Google Ads is probably the most well-known pay-per-click advertising platform, there are many of these online. Microsoft Advertising is Google Ads’ most significant competitor in the market. It is more cost-effective than Google, and you can work with a smaller budget.
If you’re on a tight budget for marketing, you can save between 32.5% and 60.2% on your expenses if you use Microsoft Advertising.
Besides being more cost-effective, there are fewer competitors on the Microsoft platform. You’ll have less competition on your keywords, lowering your click cost. You’ll have about 36% fewer competitors on your MA campaigns. The fact that there’s less competition is partly why you can use the service with a smaller budget.
The smaller market share might worry you, but Microsoft has made the most of its claim. In 2019 alone, Microsoft had over 12 billion searches on the desktop Bing platform, with 592 million unique users. That equals 11.5% market share on desktops alone. That makes the platform perfect for niche advertising campaigns using this market share to their advantage.
The Target Market with Microsoft Advertising
The majority of Bing users are over 35 years of age. They have a higher income than the average Google user, making it easier to determine your target market, specifically if you’re advertising luxury goods and services. It seems like Bing users enjoy spending their money. Research shows that Bing users spend 22% more on purchases than other search engines, including Google.
You can look at In-market Audiences, a form that Microsoft Advertising uses to target audiences. This form uses data on users’ intent to buy based on where they’ve clicked on the search engine. A feature like this can have a significant impact on your pay-per-click campaign.
Microsoft Advertising allows you to target devices instead of just areas or keywords. This is where Microsoft Ads has a leg up on Google Ads. You can target the device, as well as the operating system that the target audience uses. You can also target mobile users only without ads appearing on desktop searches.
Advantages
Besides being able to target your audience much better, and it’ll probably cost you less, you can also integrate Microsoft Advertising with Google Ad campaigns. Instead of choosing between the platforms, you can use both. You can import a Google Ads campaign already running into your MA campaign, so you don’t have to recreate the drive manually.
You can also choose a remarketing option, which has been shown to give higher conversion rates.
Like with Google Ads, you can enlist Microsoft Advertising professionals to help you determine the best strategies to maximize your campaign. You can also read more about the different techniques that you can use on your own.
The ideal situation would be to have a Microsoft Advertising campaign alongside a Google Ads campaign, ensuring you expose the maximum number of people to your advertisements.
Disadvantages
You might have already thought that since Bing has fewer users, there will be limited reach. With Google having 93% of the search market share, most people consider Google Ads solely based on its popularity. However, you can reach 63 million people with Microsoft advertising. That’s a considerable number of people that won’t see your ads when using Google alone.
Due to Google’s size, there are features that it can offer that Microsoft Advertising doesn’t necessarily have yet. These include Customer Match and Smart Shopping, making targeting and purchasing more effortless. Microsoft Advertising has some features in the pipeline, and you may be able to access various new features.
Key Take-Aways
Microsoft Advertising is an intelligent tool to ensure your website or product gets maximum exposure. This platform is specifically helpful if you have a niche product or a luxury product that you want to advertise. The fact that you have a slightly older audience with a higher income than the average Google user helps you target people who will purchase your product.
While Bing doesn’t have the same market share as Google, you shouldn’t discount the fact that you will reach many people you won’t otherwise reach if you use Microsoft Advertising. There are also exciting features on the platform that you can use to target specific users.
The ideal marketing situation would be to combine the two major search engines and buy ads for both Google and Bing to ensure that most people with internet access will be exposed to your product with Microsoft Advertising.
If you have a small budget to market your niche product or luxury item, Microsoft Advertising is an excellent product to look into to give your business maximum exposure. There are packages tailor-made for different businesses, and you won’t incur any costs without clicks.
It’s undoubtedly a good option for almost any business. If you want to reach more of your target audience, investing in Microsoft Advertising will be worthwhile.
