The Bing Thing - Why You Should Maximise Your Bing Presence

Jed Brookes-Lewis taps into why you should harness the volume of growth Bing offers...

What state is your Bing Ads account in currently?

If you have one, then you are already one step ahead of the estimated 36% of brands which currently have no presence whatsoever on the platform[1]. Since the engine launched in 2009, advertising on it has often been viewed as an afterthought when compared to the gargantuan volumes available through AdWords.

However, growth in market share and improvements in technology are making Bing a more attractive prospect to savvy digital marketers wanting to push their volume growth through the roof.

Discover why you should be spending time improving your Bing accounts, and the benefits you can reap from this work…

An Ever-Growing Market Share

According to data presented by Microsoft in August 2017, Bing searches now represent 33% of all those performed in the USA, and 23% of those in the UK[2].

These numbers prove that the potential volumes available can help drive significant growth if they can be tapped into correctly. The increases in market share over the last few years (Bing accounted for 20% of UK searches in 2016 and 16% in 2015)[3] have been driven by two main factors.

Firstly, brand recognition for Bing has grown significantly. Previously, unfamiliar users were perhaps not confident in using a search engine they hadn’t heard as much about.

The work Microsoft have put into building awareness of the Bing brand has resulted in people becoming far more trusting when using the engine. While we may not be “Binging” for information quite yet, the progress has been massive.

Secondly, through partnerships, Bing has become the engine of choice for a number of different platforms. Alongside the Windows 10 search feature, we also see Bing-powered engines being used by Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa.

These integrations mean users are being exposed to Bing far more often than they would expect.

The Power of Purchasing

The profile of the average Bing user tends to lean to the higher end of the age spectrum (71% are 34+) with over 50% having an average household income worth over £55k[4]. With the wisdom of age and disposable income on their side, Bing users are willing to part with more of their money more often when compared like-for-like with AdWords users.

Looking across our client portfolio at ClickThrough, we see, on average, a 15% increase in average order value when comparing Bing accounts with their AdWords equivalents.

Save Those Pennies

Due to the reduced competition on Bing compared to AdWords, a smaller budget can be stretched a lot further. Some advertisers see reductions of up to 33% in cost per click compared to Google[5], and with those clicks more likely to convert and drive more revenue, this all adds up to significant improvements in efficiency and growth in return on investment.

Get Smart

What if you could integrate Google’s keyword planner and auction insights tools into one easy package that integrates seamlessly into Excel?

This describes Bing Ads Intelligence to a tee – allowing you to see your current keyword performance, competitors and potential areas for expansion and expected volumes and spend.

Ad Intelligence is a handy tool that can save you countless hours of research. You can even look to expand the learnings from this back to your AdWords activity to drive further growth.

Running Bing activity should be a no-brainer for advertisers. You can drive cheaper traffic with higher value users in a space that continues to show great growth potential.

If you would like to talk more about Bing or paid in search in general then just give us a call and speak to our experts today.

[1] http://www.searchscientist.co.uk/google-adwords-vs-bing-ads/
[2] https://www.onmsft.com/news/bing-ads-tweets-search-market-share-numbers-bing-is-bigger-than-you-think
[3] https://www.clicky.co.uk/2017/04/bing-search-advertising/
[4] https://advertise.bingads.microsoft.com/en-us/insights/planning-tools/bing-network-audience
[5] https://www.matchcraft.com/advertising-google-and-bing/