Everyone knows that Google is the 800 lb. gorilla of the search world. They get somewhere around 70% of search volume and have the best interface and editor tool for advertisers. That’s great and it’s why most advertisers start with AdWords. However, there are several reasons you should consider using Bing Ads:
1. Channel Diversity
Everyone knows the saying “Don’t Put All Your Eggs In One Basket”. The same goes for your PPC efforts. What if Google changes their advertising policies for your product? I worked with a company that provided a nutritional supplement and one day Google said they could no longer advertise on the keyword of their product and they couldn’t send traffic to pages that mentioned the product. Since the name of the product was in their URL, this killed their primary traffic source and eventually the business. Just look at the list of Restricted Products in Google’s policies.
2. Reach Different People
John Gagnon wrote a post on SearchEngineWatch back in April that included a great graphic. I’ve included it below:
As you can see, there are millions of unique search users that you can only reach through Bing. As hard as it is to fathom, they just don’t use Google. Depending on your industry, wouldn’t you like to tap into that?
3. Transparency
Here are a couple ways Bing is being more transparent:
- The Bing Ads Intelligence tool in Excel allows you to see not only volume estimates for a keyword, but also how that volume breaks down by user location, age, gender, and device. Very cool.
- I wrote a post yesterday on my personal blog about how AdWords is mis-reporting cost/conversion statistics in the AdWords interface. Bing reports the field as expected. They just divide spend by the number of conversions.
Conclusion
Whether you’re looking to diversify your channels, reach new customers, or have greater visibility into your advertising, Bing is worth the look.
