Bing Ads

Bing Ads is the search-and-display ad platform that serves Microsoft’s properties - Bing search, Yahoo search, AOL, and Microsoft’s audience network across MSN, Outlook, and partner sites. The product was officially renamed Microsoft Advertising in 2019 but most people in the industry still call it Bing Ads and probably will for another decade.

Why it actually deserves a slot in your media mix

Three reasons most teams underweight it:

Cheaper CPCs. Average CPCs on Microsoft Advertising run 30-50% lower than equivalent Google Ads keywords. Less competition for the same intent.

Older, wealthier audience. Bing’s user base skews 35+, higher household income, more desktop usage. For B2B and certain B2C verticals (financial services, real estate, luxury) this audience converts better than the broader Google equivalent.

The import button. Microsoft built a one-click campaign import from Google Ads. Whatever you’re already running on Google, you can clone over in 20 minutes. The objection of “not worth the setup time” mostly evaporates.

Why most teams still ignore it

One number: Bing’s market share. Roughly 7% globally, climbing in some markets, shrinking in others. The traffic ceiling is real - even if Bing converts beautifully, you can only spend so much before you exhaust the inventory.

For most direct-response advertisers the calculation is: 7% of Google’s traffic at 60% of Google’s CPC equals “worth running, never the headline channel.” So it sits in the maintenance bucket and most teams forget it exists between quarterly reviews.

An example

A B2B SaaS spending $40k/month on Google Ads imported their top-performing campaigns to Microsoft Advertising as a four-week test. They allocated $4k of test budget - 10% of their Google spend.

Results: $4k generated 18 trial signups at $222 CAC. Their Google Ads CAC for the same campaigns: $310. Same product, same offer, same creative, 28% lower CAC.

They moved Microsoft Ads to a permanent line-item at $6k/month. Couldn’t push it higher without exhausting the available impression volume - but at the volume that worked, the channel was a clear positive contribution.

What’s changed recently

Two things worth knowing:

Microsoft now has integrated LinkedIn audience targeting on Microsoft Advertising - you can layer LinkedIn job-title and industry data onto Bing search keywords. For B2B campaigns this is genuinely differentiated; Google can’t do it.

And the Bing/AI integration story (Copilot, Bing Chat) is moving the platform faster than it has in a decade. Whether that translates to share gain is uncertain - but ignoring Microsoft Advertising on the assumption that “nobody uses Bing” is increasingly out of date.

Related terms

• Google Ads - the dominant equivalent platform Microsoft Advertising is the cheaper-and-quieter alternative to
• Pay-Per-Click (PPC) - the underlying auction model both platforms run on
• Cost Per Click (CPC) - the metric where Microsoft Advertising’s main structural advantage shows up
• Paid Search - the broader channel both platforms are the dominant tools for
• Quality Score - the auction-quality concept Microsoft Advertising has its own version of