Bing Ads vs Google Ads

When comparing Bing Ads vs Google Ads, you’ll notice that they both essentially do the same thing; they are both pay-per-click advertising platforms that allow businesses to buy advertising space in order to reach their target audience, drive traffic figures and, of course, increase revenue. However, both have their own qualities and USPs that make them look more luxurious than the other. Here’s our quick breakdown:

In terms of their basic marketing aspects, the Bing vs Google Ads debate looks like a non-starter, as they both are extremely similar in what they do. However, there are a few subtle differences to be made aware of:

1. Both have keyword research tools that allow you to find the search volume among both platforms. You can set up keyword match types and negative keyword targeting to prevent your ads from showing up for terms you don’t want. However, due to low usage rates, the traffic volume is usually a lot lower on Bing.

2. Whilst you can schedule ads on both platforms, Bing Ads allows you to schedule based on the local time of the person viewing the ad. Therefore, if you have a global search ad running 9am to 5pm, Bing will target UK and US visitors at these respective hours local time, unlike Google Ads which will set it based on the ad creator’s time zone.

3. Though both have in-market audience features to allow for better targeting, they don’t have the exact same segments (for example, Bing has a ‘social’ category, which Google Ads does not). Before you start duplicating your campaigns from Google to Bing, make sure your audiences are similar to one another!

4. A final difference is that the display URLs within the SERPs can be formatted differently; Bing’s landing page URL is in bold whereas Google Ads is not. This can therefore be more eye-catching to the user, leading to a higher likelihood of clicking-through to the webpage. Another small win for Bing in the Bing vs Google Ads debate!

Although Google is the prominent search engine and Google Ads is highly favoured among marketers, Bing is seeing 23% year-on-year growth in search marketing and currently has over fourteen billion searches carried out per month by 681 million Bing users among the Microsoft Search Network globally. The key point is that these users can be reached on a search engine that is not reachable on the Google Advertising Network, which can open up a whole new audience potential for businesses. Therefore, by using Bing Ads you have the potential to not only increase your reach but also to advertise to new and unique audiences that are overlooked by other marketers using only Google Ads.

Alongside having potentially unique and untapped audiences, Bing Ads advertising costs have been found to have significantly cheaper cost-per-click (CPC) than Google Ads. So far in 2021, identical shopping campaigns on Google Ads and Bing Ads for one of our clients have seen a 37.8% difference in CPC spend. This has resulted in a cost-per-acquisition (CPA) difference of 36.25% in favour of Bing, further implying Bing’s cheaper advertising costs. Resulting from this, we’ve been able to deliver high ROAS figures of over 2800% with Bing Ads for this client, which goes to show the true potential that Bing Ads can provide to your business.

1. Lower competition. As many marketers tend to favour Google Ads vs Bing Ads, there is generally less competition with Bing Ads, meaning you can expect to bid less for keywords and see a lower CPC.

2. More impressions above organic search. Bing will show more ads at the top of a search engine results page, meaning it is easier for your ads to appear in prominent positions.

3. Stronger device targeting. Unlike Google Ads, Bing Ads can allow you to advertise and target specific audiences based on their device type. For example, some campaigns might be better targeted to mobile users than desktop users. A common example of this is remarketing display adverts, where a majority of conversions come from mobile users. Another benefit of Bing Ads device targeting is that it can allow advertisers to target audiences on their operating system, particularly effective if you only want to reach either iPhone or Android users.

4. Greater and more specific control. One particularly exciting benefit of Bing Ads is that it allows marketers to work at a more granular level and optimise individual ad groups in a way that can only be done at the campaign level within Google Ads. Therefore, there’s less restriction, allowing marketers to dive straight into ad-group settings rather than creating a new campaign to make any changes.

5. Higher CTR: The average click-through rate for Bing Ads is roughly 50% higher than Google Ads due to the significantly less competition, making the headlines of your ads stand out to your relevant target market.

6. Better ROI: Bing Ads tend to achieve similar conversion rates to Google Ads despite lower CPC, meaning that advertisers often see a higher return on investment with Bing compared to Google. Why might this be? It’s possibly because Bing Ads are seen by older age demographics, unlike Google SERPs that are used more by the younger generations. Previous studies have confirmed that the older generation is then more likely to click the top ad than click the #1 organic search result as they can’t tell the difference between paid and organic SERPs.

7. Close variants options. You might notice in your Google Ads campaigns that your exact and phrase match keywords keep picking up ‘close variants’ even when you don’t want them to, unchangeable to marketers. However, one of the benefits of Bing Ads is that it gives you the option to opt-in or out of ‘close variants’ at both campaign and ad group level, giving marketers more control of when their ad should be being displayed.

8. Bing Ads have unique social extensions. With Bing Ads, you can choose to display how many Facebook or Twitter followers you have on the ad, to show authority or trust before the user even clicks the ad. Google Ads also allow you to do this, but only for your Google+ account, which isn’t as appealing.

9. Stronger demographic targeting. Bing Ads provides marketers with the chance to control the demographic targeting of their ads. Unlike Google Ads that gives marketers little demographic targeting besides custom audiences which you have to create manually, this tool is extremely effective if you know your products are purchased by a particular age group or gender. Creating this targeting, including setting bid adjustments for specific age groups and genders, can further allow you to reach the right audience at the right time, improving the likelihood of conversions when a user clicks your ad.

10. Import Google Ads campaigns. Bing Ads recognises that businesses might use themselves and Google Ads in unison, so their import features allow marketers to transfer campaigns to be time-efficient, creating an easy-to-set-up feel to the platform.

It is important to remember that Google Ads is still a very effective marketing platform with a much larger reach than Bing Ads, and neither one should be preferred or implemented over the other. Instead, Bing Ads should be considered as an addition to your current marketing strategy, combined with Google Ads and other marketing channels in a way that will allow both platforms to work together. Therefore, the Bing vs Google Ads conundrum should be viewed as Bing Ads with Google Ads. This offers advertisers new opportunities and potential by increasing their reach, and by marketing to additional and unique online audiences that cannot be achieved through Google Ads alone.

For more information about Bing Ads vs Google Ads, or if you require any assistance on implementing Bing Ads within your current marketing strategies, contact our Bing-certified specialists today, or read our blog for further digital insights.