osoft Ads 2023: Key areas for optimization, testing and leverage

Google’s push to machine learning and automated bid by Google – away from more manual optimizations – creates an exacerbation for PPC marketers.

The January revision to “remove redundant keyword” recommendations, in which they announced the removal redundant exact and phrase-match keywords in favor broad match, was an example of this trend.

It’s made us question if we should reconsider Microsoft Advertising, a long-standing sibling to paid search.

Microsoft’s ambitious goals were announced in late 2022 by Microsoft to capture a larger share of brand advertising budgets.

This is a promising prospect. Let’s take a look at Microsoft Ads (or Bing Ads as many PPC marketers still affectionally call it) in relation Google. We will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of Microsoft Ads and how they can help the platform gain market share.

What are the advantages of Microsoft search over Google right now for PPC professionals?

As I write this, there are two major advantages Microsoft and its search engine, Microsoft Bing has over Google.

First, EQ has an advantage: I have found their representatives to be reliable, helpful and less likely to push an agenda that Google’s reps.

This is something to expect from a challenger brand who needs to work harder for market share. However, it’s still a benefit to work with people who are open to finding ways to achieve your goals as well as doing what’s best for your clients.

Microsoft’s unique ability to draw in LinkedIn targeting is strictly a growth marketing perspective. This could allow for account-based marketing strategies (ABM) for marketers who are looking to maximize their budgets.

Microsoft allows you to target by job function, specific industry and company. Although they don’t yet have full LinkedIn targeting capabilities (more details in a bit), you can use job-function exclusions as well as company targeting to create ABM targeting for brands within your ICP.

Microsoft’s Search Partners network also contains DuckDuckGo. This gets some attention even though it’s privacy-first and not an advertising network.

DuckDuckGo can be excluded from Search Partners in order to concentrate spend, but it can’t be isolated for a clean test.

Microsoft beat Google recently on the features front by rolling out video extension, which are review extensions that complement action extensions, and also adds to Google’s well-designed ad features.

What are the disadvantages of Microsoft Advertising?

Scale is the most important. While Bing has narrowed the gap to Google in search engine volume during the last three years, Google’s volume of searches is almost 10x greater than Bing’s.

Bing is another sibling. With a few months’ notice, it tends to be similar to Google. For example, the deadline to switch to Bing RSAs has loomed and they are pushing Performance Max-like functions that can be used by ecommerce brands.

This means that most functionality released by Google will eventually be available on Bing, regardless of whether advertisers like it.

Bing’s quality has struggled historically to match Google’s algorithm. This has been a problem for advertisers trying to retain control over their top keywords.

Their exact match query results have been nearly as good than Google’s recently and they share nearly all the search term data for all keyword types (99% vs. Google’s 80%).

This is not a disadvantage – it could be a plus if Bing continues to emphasize consistency.

Advertisers should consider testing and investing in Microsoft Advertising.

My clients have lower competition for keywords on Bing, which results in lower CPCs than Google.

This doesn’t always translate into higher conversion rates, but it can lead to more efficient CPLs.

Despite this, the scale of the CPLs is so low that they don’t just justify large resource shifts.

However, Bing can be a smart play in some situations.

• To protect your rights, we recommend that you keep an eye on the terms of your brand. Although it may seem obvious, there are many brands who forget this step.
• You can get enough volume from your spend by using lower CPCs.
• While I recommend that you continue to fully fund Google, if you are seeing a soft month or budget savings from scrubbing low-performing keywords on Google, then it may be worth trying Bing.

If you are struggling to increase or maintain your returns from a regular investment in Google, consider scaling back that amount and reinvesting in Bing tests.

What should Microsoft do to be more competitive with Google?

Microsoft seems to be all in on AI with its recent $10B investment into OpenAI, and its hot ChatGPT functionality.

It could be a trending, user-friendly alternative for Google if it integrates ChatGPT in Bing search, like is rumored.

One thing that I strongly recommend Microsoft do for advertisers in terms of advertising budgets is the ability to create audiences using LinkedIn targeting.

Microsoft should capitalize on the B2B in-market audience that Google has identified as a significant weakness. This could be a great alternative to expensive ABM tools for companies that don’t have the budget.

It’s possible to add a lot of nuance to existing LinkedIn-like targeting. B2B marketers would have the opportunity to target job titles and drill down using the “and” part of and/or targeting. This is something that Google does not offer.

Bing should also be focusing on targeting and chatbot innovation.

The combination of the Microsoft Click ID and the auto tag for use with CRMs has made it a great tool for optimization. However, it isn’t as robust as Google’s offline tracking which is huge for B2B.

Microsoft Ads are not to be missed

Except in very specific cases, I don’t see any compelling reason to shift resources from Google to Bing at this stage. Microsoft is building momentum and there’s room for more.

The picture could be changing if Google continues to increase its engagement costs and Microsoft focuses more on releases that allow advertisers reach the right people faster.

Keep an eye out for announcements and product releases. Keep up-to-date with the latest platform announcements and product releases.

The post Microsoft Ads for 2023: Key areas where to leverage, test, and optimize appeared originally on Search Engine Land.