In the competitive world of digital advertising, choosing the right platform for your pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns can significantly impact your business’s success. Google Ads and Bing Ads (now known as Microsoft Advertising) are two major players in the PPC arena, each offering unique features and advantages. As you navigate the complexities of online advertising, understanding the nuances of these platforms is crucial for maximising your return on investment and reaching your target audience effectively.
Both Google Ads and Bing Ads provide powerful tools for businesses to connect with potential customers, but their differences in market share, targeting capabilities, and cost structures can lead to varying results depending on your specific needs and goals. By examining these platforms in detail, you’ll be better equipped to make an informed decision about which one—or perhaps a combination of both—is best suited for your advertising strategy.
Google ads vs bing ads: market share and reach comparison
When it comes to search engine market share, Google is the undisputed leader. As of 2023, Google commands approximately 85% of the global search engine market, while Bing holds around 9%. This vast difference in market share translates directly to the potential reach of your advertising campaigns.
Google’s dominance means that your ads have the potential to be seen by a much larger audience. With over 5.6 billion searches per day, Google offers unparalleled visibility for your brand. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean that Google Ads is always the better choice for every business.
Bing, while having a smaller market share, still reaches a significant number of users—about 1 billion monthly active users worldwide. What’s more interesting is the demographic breakdown of Bing users. They tend to be older, with higher incomes, and are more likely to have college degrees. This could be particularly valuable if your target audience aligns with these demographics.
It’s also worth noting that Bing is the default search engine for Microsoft products, including Windows PCs and the Edge browser. This gives it a strong presence in corporate environments, which can be a significant advantage for B2B advertisers.
While Google’s reach is vast, Bing’s more focused audience can sometimes lead to higher conversion rates and better ROI for certain industries.
Advertising platform features and capabilities
Both Google Ads and Bing Ads offer a robust set of features to help advertisers create, manage, and optimise their campaigns. However, there are some notable differences in their capabilities that could influence your platform choice.
Google ads’ keyword planner and performance planner tools
Google Ads provides advertisers with powerful tools for keyword research and campaign planning. The Keyword Planner is an essential resource for discovering new keywords, estimating search volumes, and forecasting potential performance. It allows you to:
- Find new keyword ideas based on phrases, website content, or product categories
- Get historical statistics and traffic forecasts
- Create new keyword lists by multiplying several lists of keywords
- See seasonal trends for keywords
The Performance Planner is another valuable tool that helps you create plans for your advertising spend and see how changes to campaigns might affect key metrics and overall performance. This forward-looking tool can be particularly useful for budgeting and forecasting.
Bing ads intelligence and campaign planner features
Bing Ads offers its own set of planning tools, including Bing Ads Intelligence and the Campaign Planner. Bing Ads Intelligence is an Excel add-in that provides keyword research and optimisation capabilities. It allows you to:
- Generate keyword ideas based on your website, a list of keywords, or a specific search query
- Get performance statistics for keywords
- Analyse the competition for specific keywords
- Create customised keyword research workflows
The Campaign Planner provides industry insights, competitive intelligence, and marketplace trends to help you plan your campaigns more effectively. While these tools are powerful, some advertisers find them less intuitive than Google’s offerings.
Ad extensions: sitelinks, callouts, and structured snippets
Both platforms offer a variety of ad extensions to enhance your ads and provide additional information to potential customers. These include:
- Sitelinks: Additional links to specific pages on your website
- Callouts: Short, descriptive text highlights about your products or services
- Structured Snippets: Highlighted aspects of your products or services
While the types of extensions available are similar on both platforms, Google Ads generally offers more options and flexibility in how these extensions can be used.
Audience targeting options: demographics, interests, and remarketing
Both Google Ads and Bing Ads provide robust audience targeting options, allowing you to reach specific groups based on demographics, interests, and behaviours. However, there are some differences in their capabilities:
Google Ads offers more granular targeting options, including:
- Detailed demographic targeting (age, gender, parental status, household income)
- In-market audiences (people actively researching or planning to purchase specific products or services)
- Affinity audiences (people with specific interests or habits)
- Custom intent audiences (create audiences based on keywords and URLs)
Bing Ads, while offering fewer options overall, has some unique targeting features, such as:
- LinkedIn Profile Targeting (for B2B advertisers)
- More precise age and gender targeting options
- Company, industry, and job function targeting
Both platforms offer remarketing capabilities, allowing you to target users who have previously interacted with your website or app.
Cost-per-click (CPC) and return on ad spend (ROAS) analysis
One of the most critical factors in choosing between Google Ads and Bing Ads is the potential cost and return on investment. Generally, Bing Ads tends to have lower cost-per-click (CPC) rates compared to Google Ads, primarily due to less competition.
According to industry data, the average CPC on Bing Ads is often 20-30% lower than on Google Ads. This can be particularly advantageous for small businesses or those operating in highly competitive industries where Google Ads costs can be prohibitively expensive.
However, lower CPC doesn’t necessarily translate to better return on ad spend (ROAS). While you might pay less per click on Bing, you’re also reaching a smaller audience, which could result in fewer conversions overall. The key is to consider not just the cost, but also the quality and relevance of the traffic you’re receiving.
It’s crucial to test both platforms and closely monitor your ROAS to determine which provides the best value for your specific business and target audience.
Some businesses find that they achieve a higher ROAS on Bing Ads, particularly if their target audience aligns well with Bing’s user demographics. Others may see better results with Google Ads due to its larger reach and more advanced targeting options.
Ad formats and placements across search and display networks
Both Google Ads and Bing Ads offer a variety of ad formats and placement options across their search and display networks. Understanding these options can help you create more effective and engaging ad campaigns.
Google’s responsive search ads and dynamic search ads
Google Ads has been pushing advertisers towards more automated, AI-driven ad formats. Two key examples are:
Responsive Search Ads (RSAs) : These ads allow you to input multiple headlines and descriptions, which Google’s AI then mixes and matches to create the most effective ad for each search query. This format can improve ad performance and save time on ad creation and testing.
Dynamic Search Ads (DSAs) : These ads automatically generate based on the content of your website. They’re particularly useful for businesses with large inventories or frequently changing offerings, as they can help capture long-tail keywords you might miss in your regular keyword targeting.
Bing’s multimedia ads and action extensions
Bing Ads offers some unique ad formats that can help your ads stand out:
Multimedia Ads : These visually rich ads combine text, images, and your business name and logo. They appear in prominent locations on the Bing search results page and can significantly increase visibility and engagement.
Action Extensions : These allow you to add a call-to-action button to your text ads, such as “Buy Now” or “Learn More”. This can help increase click-through rates by making your desired action clear to potential customers.
Display network reach: google display network vs microsoft audience network
Both platforms offer display advertising options that allow you to reach users beyond search results:
The Google Display Network (GDN) reaches over 90% of internet users worldwide across millions of websites, videos, and apps. It offers extensive reach and sophisticated targeting options, making it a powerful tool for brand awareness and remarketing campaigns.
The Microsoft Audience Network is smaller but still significant, reaching hundreds of millions of users across Microsoft properties (like MSN, Outlook.com, and Edge) and partner sites. It offers unique targeting options like LinkedIn Profile targeting, which can be valuable for B2B advertisers.
While Google’s display network offers greater reach, Bing’s network can provide more focused targeting for certain audiences, particularly in professional contexts.
Analytics and reporting capabilities
Effective campaign management relies heavily on robust analytics and reporting tools. Both Google Ads and Bing Ads offer comprehensive analytics capabilities, but there are some differences in their approaches and integration with other tools.
Google analytics integration and conversion tracking
Google Ads benefits from seamless integration with Google Analytics, providing a wealth of data about user behaviour, conversion paths, and the overall customer journey. This integration allows you to:
- Track user behaviour from ad click through to conversion
- Analyse multi-channel funnels to understand the role of PPC in your overall marketing strategy
- Import Goals and Ecommerce transactions from Google Analytics into Google Ads
- Create remarketing lists based on user behaviour on your website
Google’s conversion tracking is also highly sophisticated, allowing you to track a wide range of actions including purchases, sign-ups, phone calls, and app installs.
Bing ads’ universal event tracking (UET) and custom events
Bing Ads uses Universal Event Tracking (UET) for conversion tracking and remarketing. While not as seamlessly integrated as Google Analytics, UET still provides robust tracking capabilities:
- Track multiple conversion types including purchases, leads, and pageviews
- Create custom events to track specific user actions
- Use remarketing lists based on user behaviour
- Import conversion data from other analytics platforms
Bing Ads also offers integration with Google Analytics, allowing you to import Google Analytics goals and transactions into your Bing Ads account.
Cross-platform attribution models and reporting
Both platforms offer various attribution models to help you understand how different touchpoints contribute to conversions:
Google Ads provides several attribution models including last click, first click, linear, time decay, and data-driven attribution. The data-driven model uses machine learning to determine how much credit to assign to each click in the conversion path.
Bing Ads offers similar attribution models, including a recently introduced data-driven attribution model. However, it’s worth noting that Bing’s data-driven model may require more data to function effectively compared to Google’s, due to the lower volume of traffic on the platform.
Both platforms allow you to create custom reports and dashboards to track the metrics that matter most to your business. Google Ads generally offers more flexibility and depth in its reporting capabilities, but Bing Ads provides all the essential reporting features needed for effective campaign management.
Industry-specific performance and best practices
The effectiveness of Google Ads versus Bing Ads can vary significantly depending on your industry and target audience. Understanding these differences can help you allocate your advertising budget more effectively.
For B2B companies, particularly those in technology, finance, or professional services, Bing Ads can be particularly effective. This is partly due to Bing’s integration with Microsoft products commonly used in business environments, and partly due to the platform’s unique LinkedIn Profile targeting capabilities.
E-commerce businesses often find success with both platforms, but the approach may differ. Google’s larger reach and sophisticated shopping ad formats make it excellent for broad product advertising. Bing, with its older and higher-income user base, can be effective for luxury or high-end products.
Local businesses might find Google Ads more effective due to its superior local search capabilities and integration with Google Maps. However, Bing Ads can still be valuable, especially in areas where Bing has a higher market share.
Regardless of your industry, here are some best practices to consider when using either platform:
- Regularly review and refine your keyword strategy
- Use ad extensions to provide additional information and improve click-through rates
- Implement conversion tracking and regularly analyse your data
- Test different ad formats and targeting options to find what works best for your audience
- Consider using both platforms to maximise reach and take advantage of their unique strengths
Remember, the “best” platform isn’t always about choosing between Google Ads and Bing Ads. Many businesses find that a strategic combination of both platforms yields the best results, allowing them to reach a wider audience and take advantage of the unique features each platform offers.
By carefully considering your business goals, target audience, and budget, and by continually testing and optimising your campaigns, you can create a successful PPC strategy that leverages the strengths of both Google Ads and Bing Ads to drive growth for your business.