One of the best ways to get leads to your website is through pay-per-click advertising, PPC. A lot of business owners and marketers concentrate more of their advertising budgets on Google AdWords because it gets such a large share of online search traffic. However, since advertising on Google can be very expensive due to competition, the best alternative available is the Bing & Yahoo! network.
By now we’ve already covered that Bing is a major player in the search engine game and is a force to be reckoned with. While its not as powerful as Google, Bing is nothing to turn your nose up at. For more info on this check out our blog on Using Bing Ads to Generate Serious ROI
Bing’s growth over the years is due to Microsoft’s dynamic marketing strategies. Its searches have been integrated into many devices and apps like Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa, and Microsoft’s Xbox, just to mention a few. Another major contributor to its growth is the Cortana search box located at the bottom left corner of the Windows 10 taskbar. With such a large reach you’ll be happy to hear that advertising on Bing is far cheaper when you compared it to Google. For more information on the difference in spending on Bing vs.Google see our article Why use Bing when Google Adwords is too expensive.
Here are 6 steps that you can take right now to start getting leads from Bing when Google is too Expensive
- Do your research
To get the best results, it is important for you to do your research properly. You should know how your target audience interacts with the internet so that you can formulate strategies for reaching them effectively. We’ve already covered that Bing users behave differently from Google so don’t simply assume that you can copy your campaigns from Adwords into Bing and everything will take over from there. They are two completely different platforms with different algorithms. People will find you differently. People will also see your business differently. Bing searches include different extensions that you can use to make your ad look more appealing. Conducting a few Bing searches for industries similar to yours will go a long way in seeing what functionality you can take advantage of and how other advertisers are using Bing.
- Pay attention to your traffic
Even though you can import your AdWords campaign into Bing Ads, you shouldn’t expect the same result. Since both platforms have diverse user bases, their modes of interaction with your ads will never be the same. They may not use the same keywords to search on the two platforms, hence, your ad may perform very well on one platform and terribly on another. Your audience at Bing may like an offer that those at AdWords don’t like and conversion rates may not be the same. Consequently, you shouldn’t do the same thing on both platforms and expect the same result.
In addition, you need to test your Bing Ads decisions as painstakingly as you test the ones on AdWords. Results should not be generalized on the two platforms even if you are using the same names for the ad groups. They should be treated as independent campaigns if you really want to get the best results. Don’t relent in testing your ads, continue to test, test and test.
- Control your spending
It is very essential for you to take advantage of many features that help you control your ad spending. You can begin by setting budgets that will enable you to meet your business goals and making use of many automated standards will help your campaigns to stay on track.
You should create a negative keyword list so that you won’t pay for unnecessary clicks from keywords that are not relevant to your campaign. Research shows that 76% of ad spending are wasted on irrelevant clicks, hence, this is a fabulously effective method of regulating your Bing advertising costs.
- Use the time zone feature and target specific devices
On Bing, there are features that let you indicate time zones for your ad. When you make use of this tool, you will hyper-target your audience so that you can reach them at most desirable times. Have a look at whenYou can waste a lot of money if you don’t modify the time zones.
Most searches are performed using a mobile device and if you provide any kind of service, you can bet people are looking for you on their phones far more than on their desktops. Taking advantage of bid adjustments and increasing your bids for searches on mobile phones could put you far ahead of your competition if they aren’t using this strategy.
- Understand your Top Movers and leverage Bing’s love for local
With the Top Movers feature on Bing, you can adjust your ads and discover the factors responsible for variations in your campaigns. It will show you the list of campaigns with the biggest performance change in two particular time frames. This will enable you to know the changes and investigate the causes so that you will be able to fix a better budget.
Bing is well-noted for matching queries with local results and you can take advantage of this by bidding for different keywords that are relevant to your business.
- Optimize for Voice Search and spy on your competitors
As mentioned earlier, Bing is the default search engine for Alexa. This means that when you optimize your ad for voice search, you can reach millions of Alexa users all throughout your coverage area. You can also optimize for voice-based keywords that consider errors and words that sound the same.
Bing also provides comprehensive metrics on other websites in your niche so that you will know how you are doing and improve your strategies.
