Recently I’ve had the chance to beta test a new feature from Bing called the Competition tab. It appears in your Bing Ads account next to your regular Campaign, Ad Groups, Setting, Ads, etc. tabs. You’ll see it in the image below along the top.
Once you’re looking at the Competition tab, here is what you’re getting:
Graph
This view is the “Over time” view where it will graph a metric across your selected date range for you and your top competitors. The image above is showing Impression Share (IS) and you can quickly visualize that Lowes is the most aggressive competitor with the advertiser running in second place followed closely by Amazon (as you can guess, this is an e-commerce client so I didn’t feel it necessary to hide the fact that Amazon is here, or Lowes)
Data Chart
This is the same information as the graph, but in a table layout. Additionally, you get to see the data for all competitors that Bing has identified. You can’t see in this example, but the chart includes 24 competitors and the advertiser so we’re aware of even minor competitors that might be taking us on in limited areas.
Available Metrics
If you can’t read the data table, then I’ll tell you there are 6 different metrics available (all of which can be shown in the graph with a quick drop down menu): Impression Share, Avg Position, Overlap Rate, Position Above Rate, Top of Page Rate and Outranking Share. While impression share is the most popular stat here because it shows you who is also appearing on your keywords, the Position Above Rate and Outranking Share will help you know how you’re doing in the competition.
Summary View
Pictured below, this puts the data into a nice bar graph and aggregates the competitor data across the entire date range. Another nice way to quickly see what you’re up against.
Conclusion
For experienced Google Ads users, this will look a lot like the auction insights tool. However, this data is specific to the Bing platform and their advertisers, so you should evaluate it and act on it independently of what you see in Google Ads. You could also compare the data from both platforms and reverse engineer some of your competitors’ PPC strategy as it pertains to these platforms. I would anticipate this becoming a regular feature for all accounts in the near future, but if you want early access just reach out to your Bing rep or the twitter handle @BingAds.
Have you tested this new feature? We’d love to hear your thoughts or questions in the comments below!
