Why 2022 Is The Year For Your Business To Start Using Microsoft Ads For Search Engine Marketing

In the past, Microsoft Ads was seen as a less appealing option compared to other search engine marketing tools, like Google Ads. But while these behemoths have remained in the public consciousness, Microsoft Ads has been constantly evolving in the background. 

Now with a flurry of new features, and improvements on some old ones, Microsoft Ads is becoming part of the public zeitgeist. Here is why 2022 is the year you should start investing in Microsoft Ads. 

Reach a new user base

When deciding whether or not to utilise Microsoft Ads, one of the things to consider is that they offer another market to tap into. Thanks to Microsoft owning multiple search engines, including Bing, Yahoo and AOL, they are the sole digital advertising system.

All chrome books and Microsoft products come preinstalled with this browser, meaning that the amount of users will experience consistent growth with Microsoft's stake in the technology market. This can be seen in the fact that 34% of the desktop search engine market share is now possessed by Bing. 

Not only does this audience exist but there are also plenty of analytics collected on them, including age, income and location. For example, Bing has an older age range of users, with nearly three quarters of these users being over the age of 35.

This audience also has a higher average income, with 32% of their users’ average income being 100k USD and over half of their users averaging above $60,000 USD household income. 

Utilise Microsoft Ads exclusive features

Microsoft Ads have a number of features that are either unavailable on Google Ads or ones that Google Ads have, but have been improved upon by Microsoft Ads.

Sitelink extensions on Microsoft Ads are a vast improvement upon their Google counterparts. With sitelinks on Microsoft Ads, you can highlight multiple aspects of the business like products, specials, services and even product demos.

If these are of interest to a customer they can open straight to that page. This has a noted impact, with a CTR (Click Through Rate) of 25% on these extensions alone. Add to that the inclusion of location extensions where you can add the business address, phone number and a direct link to a relevant page and this provides a great deal of opportunity. 

Bing Ads also has a feature no longer available on Google Ads, exact keyword matching. This is good as instead of being required to pay for close matches and misspelling of your keyword, it is optional. This means you have more control over your ads and who they are going to.

Another feature of note is the in depth demographic targeting offered by Microsoft Ads. This demographic targeting means that you can target different age ranges, different genders and even different nationalities with a time zone assigned to your ad.

Furthermore, you can also target different technology demographics, with a choice between phones, laptops and desktops. This is on top of the regular targeting of what their prior searches and keywords were.

Another demographic you can target is LinkedIn users with the two platforms having an overarching targeting program. This is particularly good for businesses trying to utilise B2B (business to business) marketing.

Save on costs

With 137 million unique searches and a 56% higher conversion rate than Google AdWords, Microsoft Ads is surprisingly cheap. In particular on search, especially for higher competition search terms the cost can be a fraction of that on Google Ads.

Pair this with the fact that Bing users on average shop online 36% more than any other search engine. With the lower amount of traffic on Bing compared to Google, you also have a higher chance of reaching the correct audience quicker, with the aforementioned exact keyword match only boosting those chances. 

Simple set up

One of the prior problems with Microsoft Ads was that it was hard to set up for those unfamiliar with the platform. Now with the Google Ads Import feature, you can import all your prior key words and other important information.

In the platform itself, it is a lot easier to view your results, allowing you to run a report to see where your traffic is coming from and how it is being affected by the keywords being used. 

Less competition

Another great benefit that has already been highlighted in this article, Microsoft Ads has less competition.

Most marketers have yet to fully utilise Microsoft Ads and as such, early implementation would allow for a foothold in the market. Plus with multiple benefits like Bing mobile registering a 53 CTR rate, it is hard to see why businesses have not fully embraced Microsoft Ads. 

At RankingCo we are a Microsoft Ads partner and have been utilising this tool with our clients. We are experts in online advertising across multiple platforms and can get you the best results for the lowest cost.

If you are interested in learning more about us check out our website or call us on 1300 247 045.