Which one of the Two is Best: AdWords or Bing Ads?

Knowing precisely where to focus your budget when it comes to online marketing can be challenging, with several service providers vying for attention and each of them boasting individual merits and accomplishments that effectively promise a sizable ROI (return on investment). Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising has grown in popularity in recent years, eventually becoming a multi-billion dollar industry that can eventually guarantee success, giving savvy marketers the ability to edit and refine several PPC attributes until they deliver optimal results.

Microsoft’s Bing Ads and Google Adwords are the eventual frontrunners when it comes to paid search. However, which platform is ideal for your business? Let’s take an in-depth look at how they eventually compare.

Which is the Next in Line?

Google has long been considered as the undisputed leader of search engines. Therefore, AdWords has obviously been the primary port of call for those who wish to cash-in on listings that are sponsored. That being said, Bing has recently proven to be a serious contender to the search engine throne by claiming 21% market share for desktop search results in the United States alone, thus slowly but steadily eating into the dominance of Google.

However, this is not the entire story because Bing Ads also show up on Yahoo searches (which has a market share of 12%), eventually taking their combined total to 33%. Google still effectively holds 64% of the market share, ensuring that AdWords gets almost the double the audience of its closest rivals. That being said, there should not be an iota of doubt that Bing is successfully catching up with the leader.

With nearly twice the reach, AdWords is extremely likely to secure a greater amount of impressions for your exclusive marketing campaign. However, this also results in higher competition when it comes to bidding on keywords. A significant portion of the registered users, which stands at one million, is likely to directly compete, eventually jostling for obtaining pole position with regard to rankings. Therefore, the CPC (cost-per-click) will generally be higher on AdWords rather than Bing Ads.

That being said, showcasing your brand to a wider target audience may justify the additional expense and prove to be of immense value. After all, sales is a numbers game. These two PPC heavyweights offer greater functionality than a simple, laidback “if we build it, they will come” attitude, giving you the ability for optimizing your ads in several ways. Let us take into consideration the individual features of both AdWords and Bing Ads.

AdWords Location Targeting

A primary advantage that AdWords holds over its nearest competitor is the ability to effectively restrict searches to geo-specific regions by using “location targeting” that is highly advanced in comparison with Bing’s alternative. This feature eventually enables marketers to focus solely on individuals nearby, which is ideal for local, small businesses. When used in combination with Google Maps, it is highly unlikely that you will be missed.

Bing Ads Demographic Targeting

By utilizing the demographics tab when it comes to campaign settings, Bing gives you the ability to dictate gender preferences and effectively set age ranges for each ad. In contrast, AdWords only allows you to specify these details for video and display ads, and not search ads. You cannot wholly stop the wrong searchers from witnessing your adverts; however, you may opt to increase bid adjustments for specific groups by as much as 300% or reduce them by 90%. Therefore, if you are selling a product or offering a service that is specifically aimed at a particular target audience, you have a definite edge with Bing Ads.

 AdWords’ User-friendly Interface

PPC advertising is not an intuitive task, with a plethora of variables to master. However, the overall consensus is that Google’s platform is simpler to navigate for novices. The multitude of features is laid out clearly and AdWords benefits by effectively connecting to Google Analytics, giving you the ability to track the journeys of customers with extreme ease. Bing’s Web Analytics is essentially quite similar; however, a majority of individuals would be more familiar with Google Analytics as it is the most commonly utilized tool in order to track web traffic and understand consumer behavior on your website. You can additionally connect GA for tracking Bing Ads; however, the process is much more straightforward and simpler with AdWords.

Image Extensions for Bing Ads

Basically, extensions function as an additional ad space, allowing you to effectively display your credentials and USPs with short, crisp soundbites, such as “24/7 customer support” or “free shipping.” You may also activate CTC (click-to-call) extensions for cell phone users and include customer review ratings in order to highlight your success. Both Google and Bing provide this facility; however, Bing effectively differentiates itself by additionally allowing images to eventually appear in-line with regard to your search ads. Therefore, if your business and brand benefits greatly from visual content, you can successfully flaunt it on Bing, and demonstrate to the world what you have to offer.

Who is the Ultimate Winner?

Any competent PPC marketer will preach the doctrine of trial and error while fine-tuning ad campaigns, and paid search enables easy experimentation, thus allowing you to run multiple versions of the identical ad to verify which one performs optimally over time. In a similar manner, the openness in trying out new things needs to be extended to both platforms. The only way to answer which is the best is to try them actually. In all probability, you will find that you will eventually reap the rewards of effectively spreading your net, accomplishing maximum exposure, and possessing the flexibility for utilizing the unique features of both Google and Bing.

To conclude, there are fewer marketers who advertise on Bing; however, the audience is steadily expanding. Therefore, ad space is turning out to be cheaper and it is hitting more individuals with every passing month. AdWords remains the leader in the field, and the advantages of a larger and wider reach are obvious; however, you may opt for Bing Ads to get the best bang for your buck.