Surprise! Bing Actually Does Matter

Jan 6, 2015

Surprise! Bing Actually Does Matter

While no other search engine can come close to matching Google as the biggest boy on the digital block, don’t be too quick in dismissing the competition. Even though Google controls 70 percent of the search market, the 30 percent share that Bing controls still represents millions of users your business wont reach if it only advertises through Google’s Adwords platform.

Bing actually possesses a much bigger piece of the search market than what you might initially think. In addition to bing.com, msn.com and yahoo.com, Bing serves as the default search browser on Twitter, Xbox, Amazon Fire Phone, Kindle Fire and Apple’s Siri. In fact, it’s very possible you may have found yourself Binging when you thought yourself Googling.

Bing Ads is typically more affordable for most businesses as the cost-per-click (CPC) is significantly lower when compared to Adwords. However, regardless of the reach and affordability offered by Bing many businesses tend to advertise on either Bing or Google, assuming that they will reach the same audience either way. Not exactly! The audiences from Bing and Google-powered searches have a number of differences including click behavior. So you can expect to reach different users with different search habits who want to be approached differently when marketed to from Google users if you hope to convert them into customers.

Fortunately, using Bing Ads is fairly simple. You can even import your Adwords campaign into Bing Ads in just a few clicks or you can create an entirely new campaign instead.

Importing an Adwords Campaign Into Bing

Step one, create or log on to your Bing account, then click on the “import campaigns” tab located at the top right of your screen. From there, click on “Import From Google Adwords.”

Input your login information from Adwords and follow the guide as it provides step-by-step instructions. Because Bing has significantly lower CPCs than Google, you’ll need to take some time to readjust your keyword bids and strategies once you’ve finished importing your campaign.

Creating a Bing Campaign

If you don’t have a campaign to import from Google or decide to try a different approach using Bing, here are tips on how to create a new Bing campaign. Start by selecting the settings for your campaign. This is a vital step as it determines the geographic location your ads will be shown, the hours and days your ads will run, and the demographics of who sees your ads, plus much more.

You can determine your daily budget when setting up your campaign. Spend whatever you feel comfortable with, but a solid initial strategy is to start low and grow your budget based on the response your ads receive.

When creating copy for your ads you’ll need to write a title (maximum of 25 characters), a description of your business or product (75 characters max), the display URL of your business’ website (35 characters) and the destination URL (the display and destination URLs can be different). The most successful type of ads utilize relevant keywords in the copy, link to a page that directly relates to what’s being advertised and feature a strong call to action in the title.

Selecting the most relevant keywords to your business and advertised offer is one of the most important steps when creating a new campaign. Keywords determine when your ads are displayed. Matching the right keywords to your business improves the likelihood that your ads will be shown to the right target audience, thereby improving the success of your campaign. Click here for more information on how to select right keywords for your business.

Once you’ve created ads and selected keywords, you can then select how much you want to bid for individual keywords. Typically, the most relevant keywords also carry the highest CPC as they are in the biggest demand. However, bid prices for even the most high demand keywords will be significantly lower on Bing than on Google so you may find your ads more competitively priced then when using Adwords. For more insight on bid strategies click here.

 

While Google may remain the industry leader when it comes to pay-per-click advertising, businesses shouldn’t ignore the opportunity to market to potentially underserved audiences available on Bing. Taking the time to start even a small test campaign could prove a bigger boon to your bottom line than what you’d imagine.

 

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