The Complete Guide to Microsoft Ads (Bing Ads): Everything You Need to Know

Microsoft Ads, formerly known as Bing Ads, stands out as a powerful platform for businesses seeking to expand their reach and achieve their marketing goals through digital advertising. As the second-largest search engine globally, it offers a unique opportunity to connect with a vast audience of engaged users. But what exactly is Microsoft Ads, and why should businesses consider incorporating it into their advertising strategy? In this guide, ClickGUARD will answer a series of important questions: What is Microsoft Ads? Why should a company consider using it? What are the differences between Microsoft Ads and Google Ads? And many more… If you want to know everything about it, this is the right place.

What is Microsoft Ads? What is Bing Ads?

Microsoft Ads is a pay-per-click (PPC) advertising platform owned and operated by Microsoft. Formerly known as Bing Ads, it allows advertisers to display their ads on the Bing search engine and other Microsoft-owned properties such as Yahoo and AOL. Like Google Ads, Microsoft Ads operates on a bidding system, where advertisers bid on keywords relevant to their target audience.

With a diverse range of ad formats, including text ads, image ads, and video ads, businesses can cater to the preferences of their target audience. Eye-catching visuals can grab the attention of those who respond well to imagery, while clear and concise text ads can effectively communicate value propositions to information seekers. This multi-faceted approach fosters deeper audience engagement and maximizes the impact of advertising efforts — from driving brand awareness to generating leads and boosting sales.

Why Use Microsoft Ads? What are its Benefits?

Advertising on Microsoft Ads offers several compelling benefits that make it an attractive option for businesses of all sizes. Here are some of the key advantages: 

• Reach: While Google dominates the search engine market, Bing still commands a significant share of over 900 million global users, particularly in certain demographics and regions. By advertising on Microsoft Ads, businesses can extend their reach to users who may not be reached through Google alone.
• Cost-Effectiveness: Due to lower competition when compared to Google Ads, Microsoft Ads often offers lower cost-per-click (CPC) rates, making it a cost-effective option for advertisers looking to maximize their advertising budget.
• Audience Targeting: Provides robust audience targeting options, allowing advertisers to reach specific demographics, interests, and geographic locations with precision.
• Enhanced Brand Visibility: It allows businesses to increase brand awareness and establish a strong presence across the Bing network and other Microsoft platforms.
• Integration with Microsoft Ecosystem: For businesses already leveraging other Microsoft products and services, such as Office 365 or LinkedIn, Microsoft Ads offers seamless integration, enabling cross-platform advertising strategies and providing businesses with a holistic marketing solution.
• Diverse Ad Formats: It offers a variety of ad formats, including text ads, image ads, and video ads, enabling businesses to tailor their campaigns to their specific marketing goals.

Microsoft Ads Vs Google Ads: How Do They Differ?

While Google Ads remains the dominant player in PPC advertising, Microsoft Ads presents several distinct advantages that make it a compelling choice for businesses and place it not as a competitor, but as a complementary option. Here are some notable differences between the two platforms: 

• Reach a Unique Audience: Microsoft Ads offers access to a unique audience that may not be as responsive to Google Ads campaigns. This includes users who rely primarily on Bing for search and those who engage with Microsoft products and services. Bing users often skew slightly older and more affluent compared to Google users. This demographic difference may influence each platform’s advertising strategies and target audience segmentation.
• Lower Competition: With lower competition on Microsoft Ads, advertisers may experience lower CPC rates compared to Google Ads. This can make Microsoft Ads an attractive option for businesses looking to stretch their advertising budget further.
• Enhanced Targeting Options: Microsoft Ads provides advanced targeting options, including demographic targeting, interest-based targeting, and device targeting, enabling businesses to reach their ideal customer base with greater precision.
• Strong Visual Ad Formats: Microsoft Ads excels in visual ad formats, particularly image ads, which can be highly effective in capturing attention and driving engagement.
• Integration with Microsoft Marketing Cloud: Microsoft Ads integrates seamlessly with the Microsoft Marketing Cloud, providing businesses with a unified platform for managing their marketing campaigns across multiple channels.

Setting Up Your Microsoft Ads Account 

Setting up your Microsoft Ads account is the first step in launching successful advertising campaigns. This involves creating an account, linking your billing information, and configuring account settings to align with your business goals.

Creating a Microsoft Ads Account

1. Navigate to the Microsoft Ads Sign-up Page: Visit the Microsoft Ads website and click on the “Sign up now” button.
2. Select Your Sign-up Option: Choose whether to sign up using an existing Microsoft account or create a new one. If you opt for a new account, provide a valid email address and password.
3. Enter Your Business Information: Provide your business name, country, and currency. You’ll also be asked to select a primary use case, such as promoting a business or managing ads for an agency.
4. Review and Agree to Terms: Carefully review the terms and conditions, privacy statement, and service agreement. Once you’ve read and understood them, click on the “I agree” checkbox.
5. Verify Your Account: Microsoft Ads may send a verification code to your email address or phone number. Enter the code to complete the account creation process.

Then, it’s time to determine your advertising budget and set up your billing preferences within your Microsoft Ads account. You can choose from various billing options, including prepay and postpay, depending on your business needs and preferences. The nest is addressing the account settings.

Configuring Account Settings

1. Access Account Settings: Navigate to the “Tools & settings” menu and select “Account settings”. 
2. Manage Time Zones and Currencies: Set your preferred time zone and currency to ensure accurate campaign reporting and budgeting.
3. Update Business Information: Keep your business information up-to-date, including your company name, address, and contact details. 
4. Enable Conversion Tracking: If you aim to track conversions, such as website visits or purchases, install the Microsoft Advertising UET (Universal Event Tracking) tag on your website. It allows you to attribute conversions to specific ads and keywords, providing valuable insights into campaign performance
5. Manage User Access: If you have a team managing your Microsoft Ads account, create additional user accounts and assign appropriate access levels.

Campaign Structure on Microsoft Ads

Microsoft Ads campaigns are structured hierarchically, consisting of accounts, campaigns, ad groups, and keywords. Understanding this structure is essential for organizing and managing your advertising efforts effectively. Let’s start with the account concept, which serves as the top-level container for all your Microsoft Ads activities. It houses your billing information, account settings, and campaigns.

The Campaigns represent the overarching marketing goals you aim to achieve, such as increasing brand awareness or generating leads. Each campaign can have multiple ad groups — where you can organize keywords based on a common theme or topic — and keywords — the terms users enter into search queries.

Effective Campaign Structure

A well-structured campaign should align with your marketing objectives and ensure that your ads are relevant to the searches being conducted. Here are some tips for creating an effective campaign structure:

1. Define Clear Campaign Goals: Before creating campaigns, clearly define your marketing goals for each campaign. This will guide your keyword selection, ad creation, and targeting strategies.
2. Choose a Campaign Type: Microsoft Ads offers various campaign types, including Search, Shopping, Display, and Video campaigns. Each campaign type serves different objectives and targets different audience segments, so it’s essential to decide the right campaign type based on your advertising goals. We will explain these types further in our article. 
3. Organize Keywords into Relevant Ad Groups: Group related keywords into ad groups to ensure your ads are highly relevant to the user’s search intent. 
4. Use a Combination of Keyword Types: Utilize a mix of broad, phrase match, and exact match keywords to capture a wider range of relevant searches while maintaining control over ad targeting.
5. Leverage Negative Keywords: Include negative keywords to prevent your ads from showing for irrelevant searches that could waste your ad spend.
6. Monitor and Refine: Regularly monitor campaign performance and make adjustments to your keyword selection, ad groups, and targeting as needed.

Ad Creation: Writing Compelling Ads

Crafting effective ads is a crucial element for capturing attention, driving engagement, and maximizing the success of your Microsoft Ads campaigns. Your ads need to resonate with your target audience and compel them to take action. Here’s how you can create compelling ads that drive results.

Types of Ads Supported by Microsoft Ads

Microsoft Ads offers a diverse range of ad formats to cater to various advertising objectives, enabling businesses to create compelling ads that resonate with their target audience. 

• Search Ads: These traditional text-based ads appear on the search engine results pages when users search for specific keywords related to your business.

Shopping Ads: Promote your products with rich imagery, prices, and descriptions directly to potential customers on the search results page.

• Display Ads: Display visually engaging ads on websites within the Microsoft Advertising network to reach a broader audience.
• Video Ads: Engage users with video content on platforms like Bing, MSN, and Outlook.
• App Ads: Promote your mobile apps across Microsoft properties to drive downloads and engagement.
• Dynamic Search Ads: Use dynamic search ads to automatically create relevant ads based on your website content and user search queries.

Best Practices for Creating Effective Ads

The first step to crafting a compelling ad is knowing your audience. You must understand your target audience’s demographics, interests, and online behavior to tailor your messaging and make it resonate with their needs and desires. It’s also paramount to clearly communicate the benefits of your products or services and what sets them apart from the competition. 

Furthermore, grab attention with clear, concise, and compelling headlines that pique curiosity and entice users to click. Incorporate relevant keywords into your copy to improve ad relevance and increase visibility. Also, finish it with a strong call-to-action (CTA). The ad must encourage users to take the desired action, whether it’s making a purchase, signing up for a newsletter, or contacting your business. It’s important to make sure your ads are optimized for mobile devices, as a significant number of users access the internet through smartphones and tablets.

Keyword Research

Before creating your ads, conduct thorough keyword research to identify the most relevant and high-performing keywords for your campaign. By identifying relevant keywords that align with your target audience’s search terms, you can ensure your ads are displayed to the right people at the right time. 

Use keyword research tools provided by Microsoft Ads or third-party providers to discover new keywords, analyze search volume and competition, and refine your keyword strategy to maximize ad visibility and reach. Consider targeting long-tail keywords, which are more specific and less competitive, to reach users with higher purchase intent. Don’t forget to regularly monitor keyword performance and adjust your keyword strategy based on data-driven insights.

Segmentation Strategies: Reaching the Right Audiences

In digital advertising, success hinges on the ability to connect with the right audience. Microsoft Ads helps businesses achieve this through a comprehensive suite of segmentation features, allowing you to target specific groups of users with tailored messaging that resonates with their needs and preferences. It enables you to focus on specific groups of users based on demographics, interests, online behavior, and even location. By leveraging these segmentation capabilities effectively, you can show your ads to the people most likely to be interested in your products or services, leading to increased engagement, conversions, and a higher return on investment.

Imagine casting a net into a vast ocean without any consideration for where the fish are. Similarly, running untargeted ads is akin to casting a wide net without direction, potentially reaching an audience that is largely uninterested in your offerings. This approach is not only inefficient but also wasteful, as your ad spend is not being directed toward the most receptive audience.

How to Segment Your Audience

Microsoft Ads provides a user-friendly interface that makes it easy to implement segmentation strategies across your campaigns. To get started, follow these steps:

1. Define Your Target Audience: Clearly define the characteristics of your ideal customer, considering factors such as demographics, interests, online behavior, and location.
2. Navigate to the Segmentation Settings: Within your Microsoft Ads account, access the segmentation settings for your desired campaign.
3. Explore Segmentation Options: Explore the various segmentation options available, including location, device, time of day, and demographics.
4. Apply Segmentation Criteria: Select the segmentation criteria that align with your target audience and apply them to your campaign.
5. Monitor and Refine: Regularly monitor the performance of your segmented campaigns and make adjustments as needed to optimize results.

Types of Segmentation in Microsoft Ads:

1. Geographic Segmentation: Target users based on their geographic location, such as country, region, city, or postal code. For example, a local business may target users within a specific radius of their store location to drive foot traffic and increase sales.
2. Device Segmentation: Segment users based on the devices they use to access the internet, such as desktop computers, mobile devices, or tablets. This allows you to optimize your ad creatives and landing pages for different devices and deliver a seamless user experience across all platforms.
3. Time of Day Segmentation: Adjust your ad delivery based on the time of day when your target audience is most active or likely to engage with your ads. For example, an e-commerce retailer may schedule their ads to appear during peak shopping hours to maximize conversions.
4. Demographics Targeting: Segment users based on demographic factors such as age, gender, income level, education, or parental status. Example: A toy retailer might target ads to families with young children.
5. Interest and In-Market Targeting: Leverage user interests and purchase intent signals to reach individuals with a higher likelihood of being interested in your products or services. A travel agency might target ads to users who have recently shown interest in vacation destinations.

Refining Your Approach: Optimizing Your Microsoft Ads Campaigns

Launching a Microsoft Ads campaign is just the beginning. To truly maximize your return on investment (ROI), ongoing optimization is essential. This involves monitoring campaign performance, analyzing data, strategically adjusting bids, conducting A/B testing, and striving to improve your ad quality score.

Extensions Optimization

Use ad extensions to optimize your ad and enhance their performance. They help provide additional information and increase ad visibility and engagement.

• Sitelink Extensions: Showcase additional pages on your website directly within your ad. This allows users to navigate to specific sections of your website relevant to their search query, increasing the chances of a conversion. A restaurant ad, for example, might include sitelink extensions for “Menu”, “Reservations”, and “Locations”.

• Callout Extensions: Highlight key benefits, unique selling propositions, or special offers directly within your ad. Callout extensions provide concise snippets of information that entice users to click. For instance, a clothing store’s ad might include callout extensions like “Free Shipping”, “20% Off Sale” or “New Arrivals”.

• Structured Snippets: Showcase specific attributes of your products or services in a structured format. This is particularly beneficial for businesses in categories like hotels, restaurants, or automotive dealerships. A hotel ad, for example, might include structured snippets featuring star ratings, amenities, and price ranges.

• Location Extensions: Display your business address and phone number directly within the ad, making it easier for users to find your physical location. This is especially valuable for businesses with a brick-and-mortar presence. A local bakery’s ad might include a location extension displaying their address and phone number.

• Call Extensions: Allow users to initiate a phone call directly from the ad, eliminating the need for users to navigate to your website first, and fostering a more immediate connection. For instance, a plumbing service ad might include a call extension to connect users directly with customer service.

Monitoring Performance and Analyzing Data

At the heart of successful campaign optimization lies meticulous monitoring and data analysis. Microsoft Ads provides a robust reporting suite that allows you to track key metrics such as impressions, clicks, conversions, cost-per-click (CPC), and return on ad spend (ROAS). By regularly reviewing these metrics, you can gain valuable insights into how your campaigns are performing and identify areas for improvement.

Bid Management Strategies

Bid strategies play a crucial role in determining how much you pay for each ad click. Microsoft Ads offers a variety of bid strategies, each with its own advantages:

• Manual Bidding: Provides the most control over your bids, allowing you to set bids for each keyword individually. However, it requires a significant time investment to manage effectively.
• Automated Bidding: Leverages Microsoft Ads algorithms to automatically adjust your bids based on your campaign goals. This saves time but requires careful monitoring to ensure alignment with your objectives.
• Target CPA (Cost-Per-Acquisition): Focuses on acquiring conversions at a specific cost. Microsoft Ads automatically adjusts bids to achieve your target CPA.
• Target ROAS (Return On Ad Spend): Optimizes bids to achieve a desired return on investment for your ad spend.

Implement bid management strategies to optimize your bids and achieve the desired ROI. Adjust your bids based on performance data, such as conversion rates and cost per conversion, to maximize your ad spending efficiency. Experiment with different bidding strategies and bid adjustments to find the most effective approach for your campaigns.

A/B Testing to Maximize ROI

Conduct A/B tests to experiment with different ad variations, landing pages, and targeting options to maximize your ROI. Test different elements such as ad copy, visuals, call-to-action buttons, and targeting parameters to identify which combinations drive the highest conversion rates. Use the insights from A/B tests to refine your campaigns and optimize them for better performance.

Quality Score

Quality score, assigned by Microsoft Ads, is a metric used to measure the relevance and expected performance of your keywords, landing pages, and overall account health. A higher quality score can lead to lower ad costs and better ad placement, ultimately improving your campaign’s overall performance. Here’s how to improve it: 

• Keyword Relevance: Ensure your keywords are highly relevant to your ad copy and landing pages.
• Landing Page Quality: Create user-friendly landing pages that provide a positive and enriching user experience and are relevant to the ad click.
• Expected Click-through Rate (CTR): Microsoft Ads estimates the likelihood of users clicking on your ad when it appears in the search results. Improve your ad copy to make it more compelling and increase CTR.

Click Fraud Prevention on Microsoft Ads

Click fraud poses a significant threat to online advertising campaigns, including those running on Microsoft Ads. It refers to malicious or fraudulent clicking on online ads to inflate advertising costs or deplete a competitor’s advertising budget. This unethical practice can lead to wasted ad spend, reduced campaign performance, skewed data analytics, and damaged reputation. Common forms of click fraud include bot-generated clicks, click farms, and manual click sabotage.

To protect your Microsoft Ads campaigns from click fraud, it’s essential to implement robust tools and strategies designed to detect and mitigate fraudulent activity in real-time. These may include:

• Click Fraud Detection Software: Use specialized software solutions that employ advanced algorithms and machine learning to identify patterns indicative of fraudulent clicking behavior.
• IP Address Monitoring: Monitor and blacklist suspicious IP addresses associated with high volumes of invalid clicks or click anomalies.
• Behavioral Analysis: Analyze user behavior data to identify anomalies such as unusually high click-through rates (CTRs) or repetitive clicking patterns that may indicate fraudulent activity.
• Click Limiting: Implement click limits to restrict the number of clicks from individual users or IP addresses within a specified time frame, helping to prevent click fraud attacks.

ClickGUARD: An Advanced Click Fraud Protection Solution

For enhanced click fraud protection, ClickGUARD offers a solution that integrates seamlessly with Microsoft Ads (and Google Ads too). ClickGUARD software is a leading click fraud protection platform that offers comprehensive protection by leveraging advanced algorithms and real-time monitoring, detecting and blocking fraudulent clicks before they impact your advertising budget or campaign performance. 

ClickGUARD offers advanced features:

• Real-time Click Analysis: ClickGUARD analyzes clicks in real-time, identifying and blocking fraudulent clicks before they impact your campaign.
• Bot Detection and Mitigation: Employs sophisticated algorithms to detect and block automated click fraud attempts.
• IP Blacklisting: Actively blocks malicious IP addresses associated with click fraud, preventing them from impacting your Microsoft Ads campaigns.
• Detailed Reporting: ClickGUARD provides comprehensive reporting on click fraud activity, enabling you to understand and address potential threats.

With proactive prevention strategies, ClickGUARD provides peace of mind and ensures the integrity of your advertising efforts on Microsoft Ads. Request a demo today or start a free trial and experience the power of ClickGUARD’s comprehensive click fraud protection.