16 Oct We Tried Bing Ads!
95% of Australians prefer Google as their search engine, not so closely followed by Bing at 3.4%*. Both Platforms have advertising and there are pros and cons for both. Some of the big positives for trying Bing ads include:
- Bings Ads has less competition (as everyone’s on Google Ads instead)
- Therefore, there is cheaper Cost Per Click for keywords
- Bing is more global – targeting over 30% of US customers
- There are some better targeting options and finer refinement options
While we’re not aiming to work with those in the US and am happy to stick with our broad targeting for now, we were mostly interested in the ‘Less Competition’ and ‘Lower CPC’ elements. While we’re super familiar with Google Ads, we thought we would get out of our comfort zone and give Bing Ads a try!
Here’s how it went:
1. Setting up
Setting up the Bing Campaign was reasonably easy to follow as it is very similar to Google Ads Set up. We put in the same / similar keywords and ads that we currently had running in our Google Ads Campaign. The location was set to be the same distance, a radius around Berwick, Vic.
2. Waiting…
Once we were confident that we had set our account up in a similar way to our Google Ads Account, we waited for the clicks to start rolling in. We know that search engine campaigns need to go through ‘learning’ stages, so we weren’t too put off by not having received any clicks after just a few days. But a month went by and we were still to receive any clicks. We added in all the recommended keywords that Bing suggested we add (over 100 -too many – but we wanted to see results) and still nothing…. Frankly, we were put off and a little disheartened.
3. Bing Representative Help
A Bing Representative rang to help us enhance the campaign. Unbeknown to us, we had selected a bid strategy which was not suitable for a fresh campaign, so we switched this, added some call and sitelink extensions and were guaranteed good results for the month that followed. (Note: Understand that call and sitelink extensions are important and helpful but not convinced they’re the difference between a lot of clicks and none at all). We were excited again and eagerly awaited the month ahead.
4. One month on…
And our account had achieved 4 clicks! Average CPC was $2.26 with a Click Through Rate of 0.17%. Another call came through from our Bing Representative to help boost our results event further. A few more changes and a week in we’re at 0.56% CTR – but an average CPC of $5.45 in this last week.
Our test campaign has now been on for three months and we have received a total of 11 clicks with a CPC of $3.62 and a click through rate is only 0.30%
Comparing these results to the early days of our Google Ads Campaign, in our first month with Google Ads we saw 83 clicks, with a CTR of 1.49% and a $3.77 average CPC. With the much larger numbers of users Google has, I guess it’s not surprising they have the opportunity to splash our ad around more often and achieve more clicks. While CPC was slightly higher, our CTR was also higher, so likely that we are paying more to reach a more suitable and tailored search audience.
What we learnt trying out Bing Ads:
The interface looks a little different to Google Ads – but essentially all the same options are there, so it’s easy enough to use. The representatives are happy to call and talk you through your campaign and walk you through the system.
It did take longer for Bing’s ‘learning’ of our audience and who to send to, which Google Ads takes about a week for some campaigns Bing’s needed a whole month before we could change to a maximise clicks strategy – once the learning the phase was over.
Bing is skewed to an older audience. For us, our audience is predominantly females and males between 25 and 34 years old on Google Ads, but the most common audience on Bing was an age bracket higher, 35-49 years old.
There are so many variables with the campaigns, keywords, ad wording, location, audiences and other targeting and refining options. If you’re interested – it can’t hurt to give Bing ads a go. Like Google Ads, you still only pay when your ad is clicked, and you can set a maximum bid limit and maximum budget.
Interested in trying out a search engine campaign for your business? Give Redsteps a call and we will chat to you about whether starting Bing Ads or Google Ads would be a suitable way to reach your target audience.