Vladimir Jones is now a Microsoft Advertising Partner. This status gives us access to advanced learning opportunities, assistance with campaign optimization and reporting, and an insider’s look at the what’s-next-for-search-and-search-engine-marketing (SEM) show. Have you caught an episode lately? Search is literally transforming right under our fingertips.
Until “Search Wars: The Final Frontier” gets written and makes it to the small screen, we minor players will have to busy ourselves with thorough character development. This blog post is devoted to extolling the virtues of Microsoft Advertising, a mighty yet humble hero. It’s the second-largest search engine in the world, and it’s thriving. For a sense of scale, according to Statista, in fiscal year 2022 the company generated around $11.6B in revenue from search advertising.
Now back to those hero muscles.
Microsoft Advertising offers an excellent way to reach a large audience
Microsoft Advertising, which used to be called Bing Ads, runs on the new and improved Microsoft Audience Network, which includes sites such as MSN, Outlook.com and Microsoft Edge. Microsoft Advertising reaches over half a billion people worldwide and tallies some 7.3B unique searches monthly. The search engine at the center of it all, Bing, captures those users—about 62 million and counting—who don’t use Google.
This at-scale channel diversification guarantees a growing audience. But there’s more.
Microsoft Advertising is better than ever before
Some in the know are referring to Bing’s present transformation as a rebirth. It’s hyperbole, sure, but there are several valid proof points to uphold the claim.
- The company improved its ad inventory, data capture and segmentation, and audience targeting capabilities.
- ChatGPT integration with Bing is already well underway given Microsoft’s multibillion-dollar investment in OpenAI. Bing’s new search functionality (released in March 2023) may allow the search engine to acquire users from other platforms temporarily—or permanently?
- Bing editors’ tools allow advertisers to manage campaigns across multiple locations and products, and thousands of landing pages, and make mass changes quickly.
- Advertisers can now target LinkedIn profiles via Microsoft Advertising, a boon for B2B brands.
- You can import existing, successful advertising campaigns across other networks into Microsoft Advertising, where you can tweak and optimize further.
Microsoft Advertising gives brands assistance with creating campaigns and targeting audiences +/- cookies
The new Bing can help when brands and campaign managers need inspiration. Think of it like having a research assistant, personal planner and creative partner at your side. Moving forward, the company’s first-party data strategy will help advertisers better understand customer intent. Microsoft Advertising’s audience intelligence is informed by signals such as search and web activity, content and brand preferences, demographics and much more, all of which help to outline intent and color it in for certain audiences.
These signals are bundled together into audience targeting tools that brands can use to create highly personalized engagements with customers and improve marketing performance overall.
Microsoft Advertising delivers
As I just alluded to in the previous section, Microsoft Advertising is tuned to brands’ success engaging with users across the internet. (I mean, isn’t brand success the reason we’re all here in the first place?) But rather than take my word for it, I want to give some real, by-the-numbers examples of how we utilized the platform to our clients’ benefit in 2022.
- We presented TOURISM Santa Fe alongside keyword searches for art, New Mexico and certain pillars of the client brand. Our Microsoft Advertising campaigns delivered, achieving an average 3.14% click-through rate (CTR) with an average cost per click (CPC) of $0.60.
- For Elitch Gardens Theme & Water Park, we targeted general family entertainment and amusement park search terms and signature events. Our Microsoft Advertising campaigns delivered, achieving an average 5.14% CTR with an average CPC of $0.88.
- We supported the American Indian College Fund’s annual campaigns to help more Native Americans access higher education and complete college degrees. Our Microsoft Advertising campaigns delivered, achieving an average 3.86% CTR with an average CPC of $1.95.
For perspective, a reasonable benchmark for CTR on Bing across all industries is about 2.8%. The average CPC for Bing across all industries is about $1.50.
We’re proud to be a Microsoft Advertising Partner. As we dig deeper into the Microsoft Advertising universe, we’ll keep our clients and broader audience informed of key learnings. So, until our next episode, thanks for stopping by!
If you're interested about Microsoft Advertising and the integration between Bing and ChatGPT, don't forget to check out our other blog post What ChatGPT Means for Advertisers.
