If you are not currently advertising your business in Microsoft you are missing out on substantial market share and revenue! Microsoft Advertising (formally known as Bing), allows businesses to take their learnings and campaigns from Google and directly import them into a new market with different opportunities. Microsoft also provides some great help articles to assist you through your Microsoft Advertising journey.
There are various reasons why you should seriously consider advertising in Microsoft if you are not already. This blog will cover a few of the key reasons we have identified.
Microsoft’s Market Share
Microsoft Advertising is Australia’s second largest search engine. Currently Microsoft Advertising holds 16% of the market share, and this is growing! Over the past few years the search engine has grown its market share by 5%.
With 16% of the market you are looking at around 146 million individual Australian searches online and 8 million unique monthly users. Without expanding your advertising to Microsoft you are missing out on reaching potential customers. Additionally, if you are looking to advertise overseas, Microsoft holds 21% of the United Kingdom market and a huge 37% in the United States.
A Different & Unique Audience Through Microsoft Advertising
The audience Microsoft Advertising presents is affluent and educated. 65% of their users are between the ages of 35 and 64. In addition to this 34% of the search engines market earn more than $100k per year.
What does this mean for your business? This indicates they are more likely to purchase your products and services. In fact people searching on the Microsoft Search Network spend more online than the average internet searcher by 31%.
Cheaper Than Google?
Microsoft Advertising is cost effective in helping you stretch your advertising budget. There are ways that you can drive down your Google CPCs such as implementing Single Keyword Ad Groups, however Microsoft Advertising can present a cheaper market. In general there is less competition in most industries in Microsoft Advertising as opposed to Google Ads. Microsoft also uses a similar ‘auction’ process as Google. This means on average Microsoft sees cheaper CPCs than Google. As such your daily or monthly budget should go further and reach a greater number relevant searches.
Easy Integration
Microsoft has ease of integration when it comes to uploading your existing campaigns from Google. It really is as simple as a few clicks to get your pre existing Google Ads campaigns with the same structure, keywords and ad copy into Microsoft Ads. This is great as you can import campaigns that you know work and have been optimised to really utilise the extra market share Microsoft presents.
Insights
Microsoft Advertising provides insights into your campaigns performance. Some of which are similar to how Google report and some are different. Microsoft, like Google provides a recommendation page to guide you with suggestions on how to improve your campaign performance.
Microsoft also presents a competitors tab which holds competitor trends over given periods of time. These trends also come with recommendations on how to improve your performance in relation to your competitors.
Additionally, Microsoft will highlight ‘Performance Insights’. These insights will spot performance changes in your account and instantly analyse the data. The aim of this is to capture opportunities and allow you to make changes if necessary.
Microsoft goes a step further with location recommendations. The interface will recommend new areas to target your ads. It will also provide estimated volumes for these new locations, helping you grow your reach.
Microsoft Advertising Bonus: LinkedIn Targeting!
Microsoft also allows LinkedIn Profile Targeting. This is a powerful feature which is completely unique to Microsoft Advertising as LinkedIn is owned by Microsoft! This tool allows you to target potential customers with criteria pulled from their LinkedIn profile. Specifically, you can target by industry, company and job function. As an advertiser you can be located in any market, however you will only be able to target LinkedIn users in the available markets (AU, US, CA, UK, FR and DE).
Ultimately Microsoft Advertising can help you find more customers to compliment what you are already reaching via Google Ads. This channel provides additional reach to Google’s search engine. Not only does this provide an additional market it also is likely to provide you with cheaper traffic from a different audience. Remember, if you’re not doing Microsoft Advertising, at least one of your competitors probably are! Be where they are and capitalise on the extra market.
