Have You Bing’d Yourself Lately?

If you’re a business owner, you’ve no doubt “Googled” your business. You probably do it often, or perhaps, daily. Whether it’s to check out if your competition is showing up or to find out if your business listing is showing correctly, we’ve all done it. After all, it’s the only search engine whose name became a verb.

With the entire world buying ad inventory on Google, the cost of customer acquisition continues to rise to meet demand. How can you possibly get more out of your advertising budget if this is the case?

Enter Bing

“Who even uses Bing?” you might ask. The Answer? 137 Million monthly searchers totaling 6 billion searches - and that number is growing each year. As of March 2018, nearly half of all Bing users were under the age of 45. Bing users tend to have disposable income with a third of their audience having a household income above $100K.

“Okay, I get it. There are actually people who use Bing. But, why should I spend my money there?”

The quick answer can be summarized in this simple phrase, return on Investment (R.O.I). To make this decision an easier one, the ROI is more attractive in Bing due to a lower Cost Per Click. If your website is optimized for this search engine, you can get a lot of FREE traffic too!

Though there are plenty of Bing users, the number of agencies and companies who have started advertising on the Bing network is still a fraction of what you see on their more popular counterpart. Many agencies lack the infrastructure and technology to manage multiple channels at scale. This lack of competition results in a naturally lower Cost Per Click. It’s like walking into an auction, and you’re the only one there.

Recent Changes in the Search Landscape

In early 2019, Oath (Yahoo) announced that it had been acquired by Verizon Media group. Prior to this, Yahoo and Bing had always shared ad inventory due to a partnership with MSN. The post-Verizon landscape is very different. By April 2019 all searches performed on Yahoo will now be powered by, you guessed it, Bing. Additionally, the Windows 10 in-platform search feature, as well as the virtual assistant Cortana, now both exclusively use Bing to return search results.

Furthermore, Bing is launching a new product - Audience Ads. This is Microsoft’s answer to Google’s Display ads. These ads will serve on native inventory across an expanded network of popular sites. In short, this means that businesses will finally be able to retarget website visitors with Display ads, as well as target In-Market shoppers.

What’s it Like Advertising on Bing?

If you're curious, just ask us! Click Here Digital has been advertising on Bing for over 7 years and has watched the (relatively) young platform grow into an extremely viable space for customer acquisition. We work regularly with each client’s dedicated consultant and support team at the Microsoft office in New York City. Their entire focus is simple, “How can we help Click Here Digital’s clients win?” Bing won't replace Google anytime soon, but it should be a key cog in your omnichannel strategy based on its value and ROI.

So go Bing yourself and see what happens. If the answer is ‘nothing’, you might be missing a vital piece of the omnichannel puzzle. Click Here Digital, a Bing Partner, can certainly help you with that.