When we think of internet giants and effective ways of reaching new customers, Bing is probably not the first thing to come to mind. Dwarfed by its competitor, Google – Bing is often seen as an afterthought at best when it comes to PPC advertising. But is this a mistake?
While it’s not up for debate that Google is by far the most important platform for digital marketing, don’t be so quick to forget about Bing. While Google is the home of over 90% of all internet searches, Bing still outranks Yahoo to take up nearly 13.9% of online desktop searches in Australia. While that may not seem like a lot, it still represents billions of searches each year.
The next thing to consider is demographics, what age group makes up your customer base? For many of our clients in rural Victoria it’s the middle aged Gen X and Baby Boomers – well guess what? Internet searchers aged 45 are frequent users of Bing, not only that, but on average Bing searchers spend 22% more when shopping online compared to other search engines.
We believe that Google should be the priority and centrepiece of PPC campaigns. But adding Bing to the mix in conjunction with Google can tap some otherwise unreachable customers. Who knows, maybe your next big booking will come from one of Bing’s eager searchers, looking to spend their disposable income on a holiday in your location.
So why Bing?
First of all, it’s quite simple to transport Google Ads campaigns to Bing. All it takes is a simple migration and your work on Google Ads is automatically transferred to Bing. So without the exhausting process of re-entering all your keywords, match types, audiences and ads, why wouldn’t you give Bing a shot?
Bing is also aggressively trying to expand its attractiveness to advertisers. Through streamlining the transfer of ads from Google to Bing and launching initiatives such as the Bing Partner Program, which grants incentives and benefits to small businesses and advertisers, Bing could unlock some unique pathways and opportunities for your business that wouldn’t be available on some of the bigger platforms like Google.
Price! Bing is substantially cheaper for advertising than Google. Although it’s a much smaller market, for less investment you can reach higher positions on Bing than would be possible for similar budget on Google. While the overall number of searchers may be lower, Bing has a more specific target market (namely older households with disposable income) – perhaps this is the perfect audience for your business.
These are just a few lesser know benefits of using Bing. Don’t get us wrong, we would never suggest trading Google Ads for Bing Ads – and any Digital Marketing agency worth their salt will prioritize Google Ads first. But as discussed above, for a relatively small investment you can have an effective ads campaign on both platforms at once. Sounds like there’s nothing to lose by giving Bing a shot!