Paid ads are an excellent way to quickly drive traffic to your site for specific target keywords. Even if you already rank highly in the organic search results, there is a benefit to ensuring that you also occupy the top paid spots to stop your competitors appearing above you in the listings.
With Google known to be the market leader in this space and controlling the majority of search traffic, there is a natural tendency for people to focus on Google AdWords campaigns.
However, many businesses are missing a huge potential audience by ignoring other search engines like Bing and would benefit from taking a step back and making a more thorough assessment of Bing ads vs Google ads.
Key differentiators
While there are many similarities in the ways the two advertising platforms work, some of the primary differences include:
- Search volume – Though the precise figure is unknown, estimates suggest that Google gets over 65% of the current search engine traffic, with Bing getting around 25-30%. This means that there are a lot more people looking at the ads on Google compared to Bing.
- CPC – With lower search volume, Bing is generally seen as a less competitive advertising platform, and therefore the price of keywords doesn’t get inflated to the same extent as Google. This results in a lower CPC for ads, and ultimately a higher ROI on your campaign.
- Demographics – This is one of the interesting areas where businesses can benefit from assessing the different platforms. There are subtle differences in the users of each, and therefore one may be more suitable to reach your target market than the other. For example, Bing users are typically older than Google users on average. Understanding the differences in demographics and lining this up with your ideal customers will help to improve the performance of your campaigns.
Analyse and adjust
While the above points are widely viewed as correct, it is also true that the performance of Bing ads Vs Google ads will vary by industry and geography, and there is often no clear-cut “winner”. It is therefore important that you test multiple ads on the different platforms to see which works best for your business.
Finding the message that resonates best with the audience is the key to optimising your advertising spend, and the best way to do that it through experimentation.
Similarly, it is important that you review this strategy over time as search volumes and cost per clicks change. While AdWords may perform better for a certain keyword today, Bing may perform better in a few weeks’ time.
Partnering for success
Deciding on Bing ads vs. Google ads is something that you can look at on two levels of thought. At the longer-term strategic level, you should consider which search engine most closely matches the profile of your preferred customers, which should help to improve click through and conversion.
At a more tactical level, you can run shorter-term campaigns, deciding which platform to use based on search volumes and suggested a bid for very specific keywords.
At AsOne we have the experience of working with both platforms and are well placed to advise on which will work best for your business. We also have the capability to manage the ongoing performance of the campaigns, tracking which ads are performing best, and using this information to optimise future campaigns.
If you’d like some guidance on which platform is right for you, or how you can use a combination for maximum impact, don’t hesitate to get in touch.
