If you are advertising on Google Ads, but not advertising on Microsoft Advertising, I’d love to know why. Based on my many years of running ads on both Google and Microsoft, I’ve put together five reasons why you should be advertising on Microsoft.
1. Reach: There is a group of people who you can reach that are not on Google. Microsoft Advertising includes Bing, Yahoo, AOL, and DuckDuckGo (which really can perform well).
PC is really where they shine – they have 17% of the PC market share. And while 17% of the market share sounds low – think about how large that really is. There are more than 659 billion monthly PC searches with 12.9 million unique PC users on Microsoft in the US. Are you really going to ignore that large of a search audience? And if you think the demographic doesn’t fit your company, here’s the details:
- 73% are under the age of 45
- 44% are female and 56% are male
- 34% graduated from college
- 54% are married
- 59% have children living at home
- 36% have a household income in the top 25%
The days of Bing being for “old” people are past, they are young, they have money, and they are 15% more likely to spend online (per internal Microsoft data).
2. Cost-Effectiveness: Generally, clicks on Microsoft Advertising tend to be lower than on Google Ads. That means your advertising dollars will go farther. Here are some examples:
3. Demographic Targeting: Microsoft offers some really great demographic targeting options you can’t get anywhere else, including LinkedIn targeting.
First, you can target by age and gender. But you can also harness the power of LinkedIn (owned by Microsoft) to target a Company, Industry, or Job Function. That makes Microsoft Advertising invaluable for any business-to-business advertiser.
- Company: useful if you are trying to target people who work or recently worked at companies based on their LinkedIn profile. For example, the healthcare software company referenced above gave us a list of 200 large healthcare companies in the US that their employees would be in their target demographic.
- Industry: target people based on the industry they work or recently worked in based on their LinkedIn profile. For the same example above, we can target anyone who works in the ‘Hospital & Health Care’ or ‘Medical Practice’ industry
- Job Function: target people who have certain kinds of jobs; in our example above, we’d target ‘Finance’ as that’s the person who would be most interested in our healthcare software.
4. Connected TV: Want to show your ads on streaming platforms like Netflix, Max, Hulu, Roku, discovery+ and more?
It’s easy to do though either CTV or Video ad types. You can target those who’ve visited your website, similar audiences, in-market audiences, customer match lists, use demographic targeting or even genre targeting. Bid strategy is Cost Per Completed View (CPCV), where you only pay for those clicks where the video is watched in its entirety.
5. ChatGPT and Bing Copilot: Since launching ChatGTP in February of 2023, there have been more than five billion chats, and the volume is doubling every quarter.
When ads are shown in Copilot results (Bing’s version of ChatGPT available as an app, within most Windows products and on Bing.com), there’s a 1.8x lift in the ad CTR versus traditional Search Ads. When a multimedia ad is shown, it’s a 3.0x lift (good evidence for adding them in all ad groups) and a 1.2x lift for Shopping Ads. Testing has shown that the presence of ad results in Copilot doesn’t appear to change user sentiment on how they like and use Copilot.
What that means for advertisers is that there’s an even greater audience, increasing each day, to show ads to, and an audience who’s even more primed to interact with those ads.
Based on these five reasons, the evidence is clear: Microsoft Advertising offers a unique and valuable audience that is not only sizable but also diverse and engaged. With cost-effective clicks, deep demographic targeting (including exclusive LinkedIn integration), and innovative advertising opportunities through Connected TV and Bing Copilot, it’s a channel that requires consideration and appropriate testing.
Whether you’re looking to expand your reach to new audiences, increase your return on ad spend, or connect with your existing audience in new and impactful ways, Microsoft Advertising provides the tools to make it happen. So, when considering your advertising mix, remember that overlooking Microsoft Advertising could mean missing out on a significant opportunity to grow your business and achieve your marketing goals. It’s time to embrace the full spectrum of digital advertising and harness the power of Microsoft’s expansive network.
