The Microsoft platform Advertising may not be quite as widely used as Google’s, but it can still be an effective tool for digital marketing.
Knowing how to navigate paid ads on Bing is important, considering that it’s the go-to search engine for around 12% of desktop users. With this in mind, you need to understand the basics of Microsoft Ads management.
This blog touches on the essentials and features of Bing ads, so you can properly understand how to manage them or seek an agency to do it for you.
Why Bother with Microsoft Ads?
You might think that there’s no need to manage your own ads or hire a Microsoft Advertising Agency, but Bing is still a highly viable and vital avenue for promotion.
- Reaching a unique audience: At the end of the day, not everyone is on Google, so this gives you a different avenue to focus on.
- Lower competition & costs: Less people use Microsoft Ads and they generally cost less in CPC terms.
- Higher ROI potential: Combining a focused audience with lower costs can result in a better ROI.
- Increased targeting: Microsoft Ads management includes more focused targeting options than Google.
- Microsoft integration: You can integrate ads with other Microsoft tools for comprehensive targeting.
Microsoft Ads have plenty to offer companies looking to enhance their digital marketing footprint.
What Makes Microsoft Ads Management Worth Your Time? – Core Platform Features
One of the important parts of Bing Ads management is awareness of the features and their purposes. Some of the important elements include:
Primary Campaign Management & Creation
The ability to set up various campaign types, including Search Ads, Audience Ads, Product Ads, App Install Ads, Multimedia Ads and Video Ads- Campaign grouping for organisation
- Defining daily and monthly budgets
- Bidding strategy planning to determine the purpose of the ads
- Settings like location focus, language and scheduling
- Keyword discovery, organisation, analysis and negative keyword refining
Ad Creation & Optimisation
- Creating ads for the different campaign formats
- Ad extensions like sitelinks, phone numbers, reviews, locations, etc.)
- A/B testing for different ads to optimise click-through rates
- AI features to generate assets quickly
Targeting Tools
- Demographic settings for age, gender and socio-economic factors
- Location focusing for geographic audiences
- Device targeting to focus on desktops, tablets or mobile devices
- In-marketing to reach users actively seeking products or services
- Remarketing to target users who have previously interacted with the site
- Customer matching to target specific people
- Characteristic mapping to target people ‘like’ your existing base
- LinkedIn profile targeting for industry focus
- Time targeting for scheduling purposes
Reporting & Analytics
Dashboards to showcase KPIs, including impressions, clicks, CTR, conversions, cost-per-click (CPC) and cost-per-acquisition (CPA)- Reports on campaign performance, focused on ad groups, keywords and search queries
- Customisable options to focus on the most relevant data
- Bing Webmaster Tools to analyse website performance and identify SEO angles
- Universal Event Tracking (UET) integration to track conversions and user behaviour
All of these avenues are important to understand when formulating your Microsoft Advertisement strategy.
It’s also vital to remember that there are tools within each of these focus points, which you need to learn how to use for maximising the impact of every pillar in the system. As time goes on, more and more automation tools are being integrated into the platform over the years.
What To Do If Unsure?
If you’re unsure, there are also plenty of documents and guides available online to educate you on the individual elements of Microsoft Ads management.
It’s also worth noting that a dedicated Microsoft Ads agency or performance marketing team will be able to offer guidance on all of these tools or enact the processes for you.
If you’re seeking out an agency to aid with your advertising approach, make sure you look for telltale signs of quality like positive reviews. High-profile case studies and an awareness of the management pillars described in this blog.
