Bing Ads: Tutorial for The Microsoft Search Engine

Although Google in this country with a market share of over 90 percent clearly the top dog among the search engines, one should not underestimate the competitor, Bing. If you want to reach your target group as comprehensively as possible, it makes sense in many cases to also advertise on the Microsoft search engine. Of course, Google AdWords comes first when it comes to search engine advertising (SEA), but advertising on Bing also makes potential customers aware of you or your business.

What are Bing Ads?

Microsoft Bing Ads is the advertising program of the search engine provider. One major advantage: The search engine is part of the Yahoo! Bing Networks. Therefore, advertisements from the Microsoft offering also appear in the search hits of the Yahoo! search engine.

Initially marketed under the name adCenter, Bing Ads has now, albeit not in terms of reach, but at least in the same scope with the competitor Google equaled. Like Google, the system is based on pay-per-click (PPC). This means that advertisers pay only when users actually click on the ad and not when the website displays an ad.

Bing Ads distinguishes between campaigns, ad groups, ads, and keywords. These are in a hierarchical relationship to each other. The campaign is a collection of ad groups. These are practically containers for your ads and keywords.

Campaign:

When you launch a campaign on Bing Ads, first think about what the campaign’s focus should be. Do you have a new product in your assortment or would you like to push a specific discount promotion? Define your goal for the campaign and then target your ads.

Ad Group:

Ad groups are intended to manage ads. Keywords are set in the groups and matching ads are created. To design different variants of ads with the same keywords.

Ad:

Your ad uses the keywords you’ve created in the ad group. The ads within an ad group therefore all have the same focus and differ mainly in the details.

Keywords:

With your ad groups or the ads in them, you can auction on specific keywords. Within your campaign, you determine which keywords are important to your marketing.

Bing Ads helps you organize ads in ad groups and campaigns

Login to Bing Ads

If you do not have your own email address, you can also create a new one when you sign up for Bing Ads

If you want to sign up for Bing Ads, the registration form will first ask you to create an account with MSN if you do not already have access to the Microsoft network. On the following page, you enter the usual account creation information: name, address, and (since you plan to invest money in marketing campaigns) the preferred currency.

The next step is to start creating an ad campaign if you want. You also have the option to import an existing Google AdWords campaign, or skip this step and complete the registration process. In the last step (” Activation “), Bing asks for your payment information, but you can skip this step as well.

Features of Bing: Advertising Overview

Until June 30, 2017, Bing Ads has differentiated between so-called search campaigns and content campaigns. The latter group was ads that did not appear in Bing’s search results but instead appeared as classic advertisements in other software offerings from Microsoft. Meanwhile, the provider has discontinued this advertising format. Search campaigns consist of ads that appear in Bing when you search. The search engine presents the ads either above the organic search results or in a sidebar next to the results. For this, Bing indicates positions 1 to 9: The first 4 are directly below the search bar (Mainline), and the rest names squares in the sidebar.

It is also possible for online shop operators to create shopping campaigns. The system shows your products directly – including image and price – in the search results. You’ll need to set up Bing Webmaster Tools and an account in Merchant Center first. But then, pay extra attention to eye-catching product ads.

Search Engine Marketing: The Bing Ads Tutorial

When you create a new campaign in the Bing Ads dashboard, the web service asks you first about your goals: for example, do you prefer to generate more traffic or more conversions? Depending on your selection, the Microsoft offer will suggest matching features. However, no matter which option you choose, you have the full capabilities of Bing Ads. The purpose of the campaign should only serve as a guide.

When you start creating campaigns on Bing, the service first asks you about the goals of your marketing efforts

Campaign

First, give your campaign a name: Choose a unique name so that you know immediately, and in the future, when multiple campaigns are running in parallel, which campaign is involved. Then set your daily budget for the Bing Ads auction. How much do you want to spend per day on your campaign? You also have the choice of whether Bing should distribute this budget – and thus your ads – evenly throughout the day or spend as quickly as possible. The default option (spread over the day) should be the ideal choice for most purposes. A special feature is called ” common budget”. It allows multiple campaigns to share a budget. Understandably, this is only possible if you have already created additional campaigns.

In the next step, select Language and Location. First, you set the language in which you write your ad – so you are already limiting your target group: For example, only USA-speaking users see ads in the USA. The same applies to the selection of the location. Here, however, you specify whether the action targets users who live at the selected location or those who search for it in the search engine. This distinction helps to reduce wastage.

With the first settings of your campaign, you lay the foundation for your marketing campaign

Ad Groups & Keywords

The next step is to set ad groups and keywords: A campaign consists of multiple ad groups. The different groups allow you to ensure that your ads are played with different keywords: In order for this to work, you need to assign different keywords to different groups. It is recommended that you specify at least 20 keywords per ad group.

These keywords, or key to the success of your campaign, are only when a user types in one of your chosen keywords, and there’s a chance Bing will present your ads. That’s why Bing Ads can help you find the right words: Just enter the URL of your website and a product that you want to promote. The system analyzes both the content of your page as well as the advertised product type or services offered and suggests numerous keywords. To give you as much control as possible over the conditions under which your ad will be played, Bing will provide you with the Broad Match Modifiers helpful tool at hand. With this you decide how exactly the input of the user must match with the keywords you have defined for the display to be played:

Keyword:

If you enter a keyword without a modifier, an approximate match of the term will trigger the ads. This means that Bing also evaluates the inclusion of the keywords in other words.

+ Keyword:

The plus sign indicates that variants (for example, the plural form) of the word also count as triggers.

“Keyword”:

Write the keyword in quotation marks, express an expression match: In order for the search engine users to see your ad, the words of the phrase must appear in the order you specify. However, searchers have the option of entering other words before or after the phrase.

[Keyword]:

Use square brackets to specify an exact match of the keyword phrase as a triggering criterion. The keyword must then be entered by the user in the search bar so that Bing plays the ad.

Tip
Keyword research is one of the cornerstones of online marketing and more complicated than you might think. When choosing keywords, it’s important to remember what your goals are with your marketing campaign. Would you like to defend your brand in search results or rank on generic search terms? You can find out more about keyword research in our detailed article !

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Once you have selected all the keywords you want and created enough ad groups, move on to the next step: Create your ads. An ad on Bing basically consists of a title, ad text, and a URL to which you want to forward. The title is composed of two separate parts for which you have 30 characters each. Both title components are separated by a hyphen. It makes sense to place in the title of one of the main keywords. For the text, however, you have 80 characters. In general, both of them are: Your text should be relevant to the readers and inform them what your offer is about.

A special feature is a dynamic text that you insert into your titles and ad text: it’s a placeholder that Bing populates based on the user’s search query. There are two different types of placeholders available

{KeyWord}:

If you use this wildcard, the system inserts the keyword into the text the user is searching for. This ideally signals to the searcher the relevance of your ad.

{Param1} / {Param2} / {Param3}:

Bing allows you to enter up to three different custom texts. These assign keywords to you. For example, this will alert you to different discounts for different products, depending on what the user is looking for.

You enter two different links to your website: the final URL and the so-called path. The former is the URL that directs to the right webpage, such as the product page. However, it will be linked via the headline. The user sees the path in the exact wording as part of the advertisement: it should therefore be more user-friendly than the actual URL. To help users understand where they are going, add up to two subdirectories to the path. This will make it clear to future visitors to your site which subcategory the URL leads them to.

Tip

When you run an ad on Bing, you want people to not only see it, but also click it. Write your texts so that they invite to a click. For this, the text has to accommodate the search intention of the user and also arouse curiosity.