Google AdWords and Bing Ads are two of the most popular advertising platforms on the internet. They both offer different features and benefits, so it is important to choose the right one for your business. Google AdWords is a great option for businesses that want to target a wide range of customers, as it has a large reach. Bing Ads, on the other hand, is a good choice for businesses that want to target a specific audience, as it allows you to target your ads to specific demographics.
To decide which platform is right for you, it’s important to understand the differences between the two. Google AdWords is a larger platform, with more advertisers and more traffic. Bing Ads is smaller, but is growing quickly.
Google AdWords
Google AdWords is a popular advertising platform that allows businesses place adverts on Google’s search engine and other partner websites. Google AdWords is a pay-per-click (PPC) advertising platform, which means you only pay when someone actually clicks on your ad. It can be an effective way to reach new customers and grow your business.
How does Google AdWords work?
Under the PPC model, you target a specific keywords and make bids on the word, competing with others also targeting that keyword.
The bids you make are “maximum bids” – the most you’re willing to pay for an ad. For example, if your maximum budget is $4 and Google decides that your cost per click (CPC) is $2, then your bid wins the ad placement. If they determine it costs more than $4, then you don’t.
You can also set a maximum daily budget for your ad, meaning that you’ll never pay more than that specific amount for that ad per day. This helps get a better sense of how much you should budget for your campaign.
You can choose one of three options for your bid:
- Cost-per-click (CPC) – you specify the amount you’re willing to pay when a user clicks your ad
- Cost-per-mile (CPM) – This is how much you pay per 1000 ad impressions
- Cost-per-engagement (CPE) – This is how much you will pay for a specific interaction with your ad – for example, when a user signs up for a list.
Google then takes the bid, assesses your ad, and gives you a quality score. This will give you an estimate on the kind of exposure you’ll get from each ad. According to Google “Quality Score is an estimate of the quality of your ads, keywords, and landing pages. Higher quality ads can lead to lower prices and better ad positions.”
10 is the score you’re looking for, but the higher your score, the better you’ll rank and the less you’ll have to spend on conversions.
Your Quality Score, combined with your bid amount creates your Ad Rank, which is the position of your ad in the search results.
What are the benefits of Google AdWords?
Google AdWords is a very effective way of reaching out to potential customers as it is the most popular search engine in the world, meaning that you can target your ads at a very large audience. It’s also very flexible, you can target your ads at specific demographics, interests, and even location allowing you to tailor your ads to be as effective as possible. Finally, Google AdWords is very cost-effective, as you only pay when someone clicks on your ad, this means that you can control your spending and only pay for results.
Bing Ads
Bing Ads is the advertising platform created by Microsoft, it allows businesses to place ads on the Bing search engine, as well as their other search engines, Yahoo and AOL. It works in a similar way to Google AdWords, offering a PPC model, but there are a few differences.
How does Bing Ads work?
Bing Ads works similarly in terms of how it functions to Google AdWords. You bid on keywords, your ad is displayed when those keywords are searched, and finally, if someone clicks on your ad, you pay Bing.
The differences lie in the targeting. You can set up filters that determine where and when an ad will be displayed. If you only want your ad to appear on mobile devices, you can select this from the traffic option. If you wanted to, you could also make it so that your ad only shows on Yahoo, filtering it from Bing and AOL. This gives you more flexibility and optimizes the effectiveness of your campaign.
You can set age filters for search ads, so only people of a certain age will see them. You can also set up a location filter to ensure that people from a specific region see your content. This way, you’ll be able to ensure that qualified leads are being exposed your marketing campaigns.
What are the benefits of Bing Ads?
According to Microsoft, more than 34% of the world’s desktop search engine market is dominated by Bing. This means that approximately 1 in every 3 people will use Bing over another search engine. Google may have the larger audience, however Bing has over 137 million users who search around six billion times each month. They tend to be older than most Google users, and have an annual income of more than $100k. This means they have more substantial buying power than that of Google.
Bing also has a lower CPC – as there are fewer competitors bidding on keywords, you can expect to spend less on your Bing ads. If you can capitalize the right keyword at the right time, you’ll have a strong ROI.
So, which one is right for your business?
Both tools can be a valuable asset to your business.
With Google, you have access to an audience with users from many demographics, and you can trust that your content will be displayed on the world’s preferred search engine. But, it is very competitive and you’ll need to monitor your campaign fully to ensure you’ll see a positive return on your investment.
Bing presents a lower risk, you still have access to a large audience, but the keyword bidding is not as competitive.
There is also no reason you can’t use both. Provided your budget allows it, a good digital strategy is to leverage both platforms at the same time. With Bing Ads accompanying AdWords campaigns, you’ll be able to expand the reach of your campaigns into new and unique territories, too. Even though Google has more search traffic than Bing, Bing boasts better positioning, less bidding competition and generally a lower cost per click.
We Add Meaning and Remove Noise.
We don’t just build websites, we develop innovative concepts and experiences for our clients. If you’re looking for Advertising Services, we create and manage digital ads on both Google and Bing as well as the more traditional advertising like billboards. Contact our team today to see how we can help you.