Microsoft Advertising is a highly-effective advertising platform that helps you get the best return on your campaigns. It’s been overshadowed quite a lot in the past, but following these eight updates and Google being under fire for antitrust, the network is set to become more popular.

If you’re unsure, tools like Adzooma allow you to optimise your campaigns for free, allowing you to discover the full potential of Microsoft. Manage multiple advertising campaigns under one roof and see how Microsoft stacks up against your go-to platforms.

Want to target a more affluent audience?

Using Microsoft Advertising is a no brainer. With 54% of users being over the age of 45 and a third of them having a household income of over $100,000, you’ll be able to focus on the customers that really matter. This article will tell you about 5 industries that have seen the best results on the platform, with case studies you can compare against your own objectives.

Why advertise on Microsoft Ads?

The best advertising platform for you doesn’t depend entirely on market share. For instance, while Google dominates around 73.1% of advertising space, they’ve recently removed terms from their search report which could incrementally affect SMB’s. It sounds like a minor update, but it’s features like these that may have helped your campaigns – if they hadn’t been removed. Some are already seeing a 28% reduction in their ad budget’s visibility.

On the other hand, Microsoft Advertising offers unique reports, insights and demographics you won’t find on any other network. As it faces less competition, the average CPC (cost-per-click) has also been found to be between 32.5% and 59.2% cheaper than Google Ads.

What’s more, 54% of Bing users are over the age of 45 and a third of them have a household income of over $100,000. They also spend on average 22% more on purchases through Bing than any other search engine.

If you’re looking to target working professionals, Microsoft Advertising is the game changer you’ve been looking for. It’s one of the only advertising platforms that allows you to target users based on their LinkedIn data, and reaches over 63 million users that Google doesn’t. This makes it 10x easier to thrive in competitive industries such as Finance, Travel and Automotive.

Here’s why, if you’re a part of these 5 industries, you need to be advertising on Microsoft Ads.

1. Automotive

Whether your business is big or small, Microsoft Advertising will work for you. To give you an idea of how powerful the platform is, let’s look at a case study from one of the most innovative car manufacturers, Honda.

Between September – December 2019, Honda used Microsoft Advertising to expand its digital footprint. They wanted to increase their brand reach and connect with more consumers.

The results: the Microsoft Audience Network drove 11% incremental clicks for Honda and contributed to a massive 64% of their total impressions with Microsoft Advertising.

Even more, the campaign achieved a click-through-rate (CTR) of 0.07% which, while significantly lower than Honda’s standard search activity, was 3 times higher than a comparable display campaign on the Google Display Network (GDN). That’s a huge number of conversions that could’ve never come into fruition had the campaign been running on Google Ads.

Louise McMahon, Marketing Manager, Honda, said the team had been really impressed with the results, and “now we find ourselves asking, what other untapped potential is there in the Microsoft Advertising platform?”

Being able to expand their display campaigns across the Microsoft properties without needing to learn a completely new platform was also a huge benefit. If you’re testing display campaigns yourself, Microsoft’s image extensions can take your ads to the next level.

Whilst currently a Beta in Google Ads, image extensions are commonplace in Microsoft Advertising. Perfect for advertisers promoting a visual product or service like Honda, or trying to differentiate your ads from your competitors, this feature can be a deal-breaker for businesses in the automotive industry.

In addition, multinational manufacturer Volvo found that by utilising LinkedIn data, they were recommended audiences they hadn’t targeted before. Insights like these are excellent for expanding your reach, especially in such a competitive market.

If you’re new to advertising, read our guide on how to get set up on Microsoft Ads. It shows how easy it is to create a campaign from scratch, import your Google Ads data and more. There’s also an offer from Microsoft when you deposit £20 – get in there fast so you don’t miss out.

2. Tech & Telecoms

“More revenue with less work”. That’s how the household goods and home electronics market leader, Elgiganten, describes their experience with Microsoft Advertising. They were looking for an easy and efficient way to manage their keywords and campaigns while “reaching more consumers, boosting ROI and staying within budget”.

If this sounds like you, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be advertising on Microsoft Ads.

Adding Microsoft Advertising to Elgiganten’s paid media strategy was an easy and efficient way for them to expand their reach, and it can have the same effect for your business.

The company improved ad impressions by 186%, clicks by over 250% and click-through rates by 22%. Using a digital marketing agency also allowed them to automate the creation of their campaigns – something you can achieve for free with Adzooma.

On top of that, Concourse Media saw almost a 200% increase in click-through rates for their Remarketing campaigns, allowing them to “improve the quality and amount of traffic” to all of their Microsoft Advertising accounts.

Launching a campaign that only targeted syndicated search partners, as recommended by their Microsoft Account Manager, also saw excellent results. Marion, the audience development team lead, said the CTR was “over 130% higher than the next best performing campaign targeting only Bing, AOL and Yahoo websites”.

Want more information on becoming certified? Check out this post on how to become a Microsoft Ads expert.

3. Travel

If you’ve done your research, you might know that conversion rates for travel sit at around 1.58% on Microsoft Ads. But it isn’t all doom and gloom. Since Bing commands around 41% of all travel paid clicks in the U.S., your ads are likely to receive more clicks than other industries.

Straight away, that’s a huge advantage you’ve got over other businesses that might not be advertising on the same network.

For global travel company TUI, Microsoft Advertising was able to help them uncover gaps in generic campaigns with Dynamic Search Ads. TUI found that even when their generic campaigns were performing well, they were losing potential customers on long-tail queries that were more difficult to anticipate.

Their performance was much better than expected. TUI experienced 50% higher conversion rates than standard text ads, at a cost-per-click rate almost on par with ads that had been manually curated. They also reduced cost of sales by 27%, delivering incremental revenue at a profitable rate.

Alexandre Lombard, TUI’s SEA Project Manager said Microsoft’s Dynamic Search Ads “now account for 25% of our generic revenue with a higher conversion rate and almost equivalent CPCs compared to our classic campaigns.” He also added that utilising Microsoft Ads was an incredible way to “generate incremental revenue during peak seasonal periods on generic campaigns.”

What’s more, as the travel market suffers during this time, features such as Microsoft’s action extensions could really make or break campaigns. Choose from 62 presents to stand out against your competitors, make your ads more diverse and drive users through the conversion funnel.

Using features like this won’t only convince people to take action, but can also assure them you’re open for bookings and operating as usual during this time.

Optimising your Microsoft ads is easier than you might think. With Adzooma, you can get an in-depth overview of your account, a score out of 100 and actionable insights on what you need to improve. All for free.

Try our Microsoft performance report today.

4. Retail

As well as utilising Microsoft’s image extensions, there’s the added benefit of Microsoft’s Shutterstock partnership. This is particularly useful for advertisers in the retail industry as it allows you to create more visually-engaging and impactful adverts.

Not only that, but the partnership provides Microsoft Advertising users access to over 330 million images to use in their display campaigns on the Microsoft Audience Network, for free. There’s no limit on how creative you can be with your campaigns – you can mix your product shots with themed photos to draw more attention to your ads.

When it comes to setting up your Microsoft account, don’t be put off by their CPC.

It can be more expensive for retail advertisers to promote your products on Microsoft rather than Google: $1.24 compared to less than a dollar. But, this might be dependent upon Google expanding its low-cost shopping ads at the expense of traditional search ads. The most important factor is whether or not Microsoft Advertising will work for your industry.

As we move closer towards the holiday season, here is just one example of how Microsoft can help you achieve your retail goals.

This time last year, online retailer MyDeal wanted to optimise its shopping campaign performance. The challenge was to “stay within the confines of the current budget without creating too much effort”, which is exactly what retailers need when tailoring their online advertising holiday strategy.

With a customer-centric approach, MyDeal saw an increased spend of 378% year-on-year and a 300% increase in clicks for their online marketplace. They also achieved a 389% YoY rise in conversions by utilising Microsoft Advertising’s advanced audience targeting solutions.

Bing Shopping and Automated Rules also make it easier to buy on Microsoft, which could be the difference between gaining those all-important conversions.

5. Finance

As we touched on earlier, Microsoft Advertising has launched LinkedIn profile targeting for Search and Audience campaigns in the UK, US, Canada, Australia, France and Germany. Using the feature, advertisers can serve text ads, Dynamic Search Ads and shopping campaigns to customers based on their company, job function and industry.

According to Microsoft, utilising LinkedIn data is “the perfect complement to other targeting solutions”. What’s more, the LinkedIn targeting feature is completely unique to Microsoft, and it’s unlikely it’ll ever be available via Google Ads.

It’s a great addition, but could completely change the game for advertisers in the finance industry. For instance, if your main objective is to reach financial professionals such as CEOs or business strategists, you can filter your targeting to those specific job titles. If you narrow it down by industry, your audience will be even more specific.

Some of the most popular brands such as GoCompare have seen excellent results with Microsoft Advertising. The combination of Microsoft Audience Ads with in-market audiences and remarketing allowed GoCompare to “expand its search reach into a native environment but maintain a targeted approach that would resonate and perform well”.

The company achieved outstanding growth, reaching around 30% below the GoCompare target cost per acquisition (CPA). If it’s good enough for GoCompare, imagine the results it can help you achieve.

To show how Microsoft Advertising can work for smaller businesses, Accounting Seed has seen nearly a three-fold increase in web traffic since launching its Microsoft Advertising campaigns. They’ve also seen a 26% increase in new web sessions and a 76% increase in page views per session compared to the previous year.

Nick Havrilak, Digital Marketing Specialist, Accounting Seed, said they “had a lot of data to import into the platform, but with the help of the Microsoft Advertising support team, we were able to get a detailed campaign up and running with ease”. If you’re in a similar situation or new to advertising, the support Microsoft Advertising provides will make things a lot easier.

Wondering when and how your business should use Microsoft Advertising? Here’s a full guide to the Microsoft Audience Network.

Ready to test Microsoft Advertising?

Microsoft Advertising is the underdog of advertising networks. With evidence of strong performance, underutilised features and in-depth targeting options, it’s definitely worth experimenting with.

If you want to make things easier, try Adzooma. For marketers and for agencies, our intelligent software allows you to manage and optimise your accounts for free. What’s more, you can action improvements inside the platform with one-click optimisations and an integrated campaign builder. It’s exactly what you need to make the most of Microsoft Ads.