When it comes to PPC, Google Ads is usually top of mind with billions of searches happening every day through Google’s search engine.
While this channel is an excellent platform for many businesses to advertise their products and services, it also brings an immense list of competitors also bidding for the top spots which can be costly.
To help reach new audiences at a generally cheaper cost, Microsoft Ads (formerly known as Bing) is a great advertising platform with less competition that works as a fantastic additional revenue stream for many of our clients.
Microsoft Ads generates around 900 million searches per day and also has unique LinkedIn profile targeting capabilities along with many features similar to Google.
Here at Colewood, we are proud Microsoft Advertising Partners and have collaborated with a SaaS technology company to help us deliver high-impact campaigns through advanced bidding tools.
Using the power of automation combined with our specialist “human-led” techniques can help take your campaigns to the next level to ensure you are getting the most out of your account.
By working closely with our clients and partners, we are able to implement a tailored strategy to help target new customers at a lower cost and improve the return on investment. We’ve delivered this for one such client, a B2B eCommerce store specialising in industrial and commercial equipment.
Here’s What Happened:
Utilising the campaign and product data we have already gathered from Google combined with communicating with the client regarding their most valuable areas of the business, we were able to structure and allocate budgets, bid levels and maximum CPC bids to Aldea’s campaigns effectively.
After the initial learning period, we reviewed trending areas taking into consideration seasonality and ran experiments that helped us create the perfect formula to help reach our targets.
The result we saw by utilising Microsoft Ads were a 56.09% cheaper cost per conversion, a 92.24% rise in return on ad spend and a 21.36% higher conversion rate.
The changes we saw before and after the implementation of a Microsoft Ads strategy were 40.06% increased website sessions, a 46.98% growth in transactions, a 108.48% boost in revenue, a 21.76% increase to return on ad spend and a 4.94% rise in conversion rate.
But wait there’s more, our partnership with Microsoft also entitles us to free ad spend vouchers when new businesses come on board!
Below we’ve listed what we think are the pros of using the Microsoft Ads platform, and in an effort to be balanced we’ve also listed a handful of cons for the platform.
In summary:
Google Ads vs Microsoft Ads
- Clicks – 77.59% more clicks received on Google Ads in comparison to Microsoft Ads
- Impressions – 238.27% more impressions received on Google Ads
- CPC – the average cost per click was 47.06% cheaper on Microsoft Ads
- Transactions – 72.3% more transactions were generated from Google Ads
- Revenue – 76.63% more revenue was received from Google Ads
- CPA – 56.09% cheaper cost per conversion on Microsoft Ads
- ROAS – 92.24% rise in return on ad spend on Microsoft Ads
- Conv Rate – 21.36% higher conversion rate on Microsoft Ads
Before Launching Microsoft Ads vs Now
- Paid Traffic – 40.06% increased website sessions
- Paid Transactions – 46.98% growth in transactions
- Paid Revenue – 108.48% boosted revenue
- Paid ROAS – 21.76% increased return on ad spend
- Paid Conv Rate – 4.94% rise in conversion rate
Pros of using Microsoft Ads:
- Less competition means that bids are generally cheaper on Microsoft in comparison to Google. This helps to lower your cost per click, allowing you to acquire new website traffic for less which can be more cost-effective for businesses with smaller budgets.
- Microsoft Ads has reported that 34% of its users are over the age of 45 and 33% have a household income in the top 25% in the UK. We have seen from our findings that this network appears to be popular among more mature audiences, perfect for businesses that are targeting older demographic groups and who may be looking to purchase higher-value products. 53% are married and 57% of users on this network also have children living at home.
- Unique to Microsoft Advertising, you can also target users based on their professional profiles with LinkedIn profile targeting. This can help improve your targeting especially if you are a B2B company and are interested in reaching new customers based on their company, job function and industry.
- Microsoft’s latest figures show that there are 15.5 billion monthly PC searches worldwide and 677 million desktop users. Although mobile devices are becoming increasingly more popular than desktops, the average order value tends to be higher on a PC with many users preferring to purchase high-value, luxury products on a computer.
Cons of using Microsoft Ads:
- The market share of Microsoft is much smaller than Google lowering your traffic and reach. Therefore if you are running advertising campaigns on Google with large budgets, it is likely that your campaign spend will be lower on Microsoft Ads.
- The majority of Microsoft Ads features are very similar to Google and there’s even a Google import feature that allows you to easily import your campaigns in just a few clicks. With this being said, Google is usually one step ahead of Microsoft in terms of rolling out new features and improving the flexibility and layout of the advertising interface.
Are you having a tough time choosing which paid advertising platform is right for you? Our friendly team at Colewood can help point you in the right direction.
We are just a conversation away – get in touch with us today via phone or contact form to find out how we can help boost your pay-per-click campaigns for success!
