What You Need to Know About the New Bing Network
Asaf Hartuv — January 25, 2017 Follow @asafhartuv— January 25, 2017
Bing ads have long offered a way for marketers to get more reach more quickly for their brands.
Bing ads are typically less expensive and face less competitive, which means that you get better placement on a lower budget. That makes Bing an especially good choice for startup brands, but it has plenty to offer brands at any stage of their development.
Now, the Bing network is making it even easier for you to get more out of the search engine’s ads. Here’s what you need to know:
More Partners
Bing has been growing its market share steadily, and that includes adding more partners.
Bing is no longer powering search for Yahoo, but it has acquired all of Yahoo’s accounts, including top names like AOL and The Wall Street Journal.
Microsoft also owns Bing, which means that the search engine is the default for Windows 10 users. Just think about how many people use Windows products on their computers and you have an idea of how large the Bing Network has the potential to be.
By putting your ads on this network, you can reach far more of your customers and get more clicks for your ads. You’ll spend less and get better results, helping you to reach your goals more quickly and maintain a healthy ROI.
More Placement
The Bing Network is focused on placing ads in the places where customers are most likely to see them, yet where they are also the least likely to expect them.
Bing says that the network includes 60 million searchers that are exclusive to the search engine. Additionally, it says that a quarter of the clicks for its ads are sourced from searched exclusive to its network.
Thanks to the large reach of the network and the smart placement of the ads, you can get more clicks for your own campaign, which can help you get more exposure, more leads and more sales.
Intuitive Placement
The Bing Network doesn’t just place ads in unusual spots to ensure that they are seen. The network also uses intelligent indicators to place ads intuitively.
Bing uses intent based signals to better understand what users really need when they search. For example, a search for “bed bugs” could be about identifying bed bugs, treating the bits or getting rid of the pests. Intent based search looks at other user behavior to get a better idea of what is behind the search.
With intent based search, you can better understand what your customers actually need and want. That increases the likelihood that your ads will be successful, which will increase your ROI.
Best Practices for Ads
To get the most out of the new Bing network, you need to follow some best practices for PPC ads.
To start, you need to do the right keyword research to make sure that you are targeting the right terms for your audience. Not only will the right keywords ensure more clicks for your ads, but they will also ensure you are paying the right prices. Nothing would be worse than paying a lot of money for competitive keywords that aren’t even the right keywords you need to be targeting.
Practice writing your headlines and your ad copy until you have come up with concise yet compelling copy. You may need to write an ad dozens of times before you get just the right wording. However, the hard work will be worth it when you start getting the results you need from your ads.
Be sure to include images! Bing now allows up to six images to be placed with ads thanks to its image extender. The images will rotate through the ad, with only one image being shown at a time.
Images and graphics will get much more attention than plain text, so think carefully about the images you include and be sure you get high-quality and evocative images. The better the images, the more effective your ad will be.
Include a clear call to action. Don’t just talk about how great your product is — actually ask people to click on your link or to take advantage of your sale offer. If you can add urgency to your call to action, all the better. Urgency like “sale ends today” will encourage people to click now instead of thinking about doing it later (and likely forgetting).
Finally, make sure that you test your ads to see what strategies are working best. Run ads with different headlines, different images, different text and different calls to action. You may find that changing even one word in your ad can make a big difference to how many clicks or conversions you get.
If you aren’t already advertising with Bing, it’s time to look at the new network and start a trial campaign. You may be surprised at the results you get!
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