Most online advertisers know about Bing Ads and Google Ads. What many digital advertisers might not know, however, is which of these ad platforms is best for their digital ad campaigns. Wondering how best to maximize your pay-per-click ad campaigns? Here’s the scoop on Bing Ads vs Google Ads.
About Bing Ads
Also known as:
- Microsoft Ads
- Microsoft Bing Ads
- Microsoft Advertising
Microsoft Bing, aka Bing, is Microsoft’s flagship search engine; it officially replaced Live Search in 2009. Bing claims a total of 3.43% of the worldwide search engine market share across all devices, which equals billions of global visits to the site every month. 3.96 billion to be exact (as of November 2023).
Bing is one of the most visited websites on the planet… meaning it is also one of the most valuable sites for advertisers. Having a Bing Ads account therefore offers a unique set of benefits and features to advertisers, including:
- Higher average CTR (1.25%) than Google Ads (0.86%)
- Negative keyword targeting
- Less competition due to fewer visitors
- Lower competition = lower cost-per-click (CPC)
- 8 ad types (app install, dynamic search, Bing Smart Search, audience, multimedia, vertical, responsive search, and product/shopping ads)
- Comprehensive device targeting
- Targeting for individual ad groups
- Ads can appear not just in Bing search engine results pages (SERPs), but also on Yahoo and AOL (both owned by Microsoft) as well as partner sites like MSN
- Beginner-friendly ad platform
- LinkedIn profile targeting
- Netflix partnership, which may boost video and programmatic ads
Who Uses Bing?
The Bing user base is more defined than that of Google. Compared to Google users, Bing users are, on average:
- Older, about 45+
- More educated, with at least half having a college degree
- Have a higher household income
- More likely to be married
- More likely to have a child living at home
Bing Advertising Stats
- Average cost-per-click (CPC): $1.54 (all industries)
- Average click-through rate (CTR): 1.25%
- Average conversion rate (CVR): 2.94% (all industries)
- Industries with the highest CVRs: Careers & Employment (6.81%), Financial Services & Insurance (5.57%), Real Estate (5.13%)
Numbers above are from an updated November 2023 report from WordStream.
About Google Ads
Also known as:
- Google AdWords (formerly)
Google Search is the undisputed monarch of search engines. As of January 2024, it has a whopping 91.74% of the worldwide search engine market share across all devices. Heck, “to Google” has even become synonymous with “to look something up on a search engine.” It’s no wonder then that Google is the leading digital advertising platform, generating $237.86 billion in advertising revenue in 2023 alone. If that’s not winning the search and advertising games, we don’t know what is.
A giant like Google Ads can offer a lot to advertisers, including:
- Incredible amounts of user data, including advanced demographics metrics
- Advanced audience targeting options
- Negative keyword targeting
- 7 ad formats (responsive, image, app promotion, video, call-only, shopping, and text ads)
- Higher search volume than any other search engine
- Ads can appear in not just Google SERPs, but also Search Partner sites like YouTube and Ask.com
- Powerful video ad campaigns due to owning YouTube
- Often has more more integrations available than Bing
- Usually releases new ideas and products before Bing
- Advanced machine learning and optimization features
Who Uses Google?
The vast majority of people on the internet use Google; in November 2023, Google experienced 175 billion worldwide visits total. That’s more than 20 times the number of people that live on Earth!
Most of Google’s user base tends to be on the younger side. The largest age group to use Google are those between the ages of 25 to 34, with the second-largest age group being between the ages of 18 to 24.
Google Advertising Stats
- Average CPC on Search: $2.69 (all industries)
- Average CTR: 0.86%
- Average CVR: 3.75% (Search network, all industries), 0.77% (Display network, all industries)
- Industries with the highest CVRs in Search: Dating & Personals (9.64%), Legal (6.98%), Consumer Services (6.64%)
- Industries with the highest CVRs in Display: Dating & Personals (3.34%), Legal (1.84%), Employment Services (1.57%)
Numbers above are from an updated November 2023 report from WordStream.
When to Use Bing Ads vs Google Ads
We can’t tell you what to do. You’re your own advertiser. But we’ve found that the following general guidelines help us maximize both the Microsoft Advertising platform and Google Ads platform.
When to Use Bing Ads
Bing Ads campaigns are often preferable when you:
- Have an older target audience. The Bing user base tends to be older than Google’s.
- Are selling higher-end services and products. Bing users are typically higher income than Google users are.
- Want less competition. Bing has, on average, a lower CPC ($1.54, all industries) compared to Google ($2.69, the Search Network, all industries). It’s due to the fact that less people are advertising there than on Google.
- Want a beginner-friendly platform. Our SEO experts find Bing’s ad interface to be easier to use, especially for beginners.
- Need greater flexibility with mobile advertising. Microsoft Advertising allows for complex device targeting, meaning that Bing Ads offers better mobile ad targeting features than Google Ads does.
When to Use Google Ads
Google Ads campaigns are great when you:
- Have a younger target audience. The Google user base skews younger than Bing’s does.
- Want to reach the most number of people possible. It’s a numbers game: the vast majority of searchers use Google.
- Are not selling luxury products. Google users are more likely than Bing users to have a lower household income.
- Want to test out the latest gadgets and gizmos. Google is usually quicker to release new products and services, meaning you might be more limited in your tool choices when using only Bing.
- Want to improve brand visibility. Simply putting your brand in front of a greater number of people can boost visibility. Bing does not have the sheer number of users that Google has.
Again, we cannot stress this point enough: the above points are merely guidelines, not hard and fast rules. Plenty of other factors besides ad platform can affect ad performance and conversion rates, like ad copy, landing page copy, ad placement, industry, and so much more that we literally cannot list them all here.
Need Help with Your Paid Search Campaigns?
Knowing when to use Bing Ads vs Google Ads is only part of what makes a campaign successful. Knowing how to execute campaigns on each platform requires a varied skill set, time, and other resources. If you need help with Google Ads, Bing Ads (or, heck, even LinkedIn Ads and Facebook Ads), give the digital marketing experts at Digital Strike a buzz. We know how to successfully run PPC ad campaigns, including search ads and display ads. That’s not all we know, though. We also know remarketing campaigns, SEO strategies, social media marketing, and much, much more.
Kristen Greif
Learn more about Kristen Greif
