If you’re considering launching a pay-per-click advertising campaign, there are a couple of main platforms you can use for your ads: Google and Bing. Both have their advantages, but which one is the best to use for your campaign?
When deciding between Google ads and Bing ads, the following are some reasons you may still be better off with Google over Bing.
Better Ad Reach
If you want to maximize the reach of your paid advertising campaigns, Google remains the reigning champion when it comes to market share. Today, Google has around 90% of the search engine market share, while Bing’s sits at around 3.3%.
This statistic alone shows what kind of audience you can expect to reach with Google over Bing. Most people use Google because it’s consistently reliable and ubiquitous. The average user knows what to expect from Google and has been using the platform for years. As such, you’ll benefit from targeting Google when attempting to reach as many people as possible with your ads.
Broad Demographics
Another advantage you’ll find with Google ads vs. Bing ads is a broader demographic. Bing may be worth using if you want to target older and high-income users, but Google represents a larger number of people across many backgrounds and ages.
Google is generally the better investment if you want to reach younger audiences in a more diverse market, but Bing isn’t a bad investment if you want to specifically target audiences with more purchasing power.
More Targeting Options
If you’re looking for more targeting options, Google ads also give you the most. Google Ads offers a combination of audience targeting and content targeting.
Through audience targeting, you can target audiences according to:
- Demographics
- Custom intent
- In-market
- Affinity
- Remarketing
- Similar audiences
Meanwhile, you can also target content based on:
- Topic
- Keywords
- Placement
- Display expansion for search
While these options are more numerous that Bing’s, you can still benefit from Bing’s targeting capabilities. Bing is great if you want to use account-based marketing to reach audiences, making it ideal for targeting individuals or organizations.
Higher ROAS
You may want to go with the cheapest option on first instinct when looking for a PPC ad platform, but while Bing is less expensive, Google is arguably worth the higher initial cost-per-click (CPC) rate.
The average CPC on Bing Ads is $1.54, while the rate for Google Ads is around $1 to $4. The reason for these higher costs on Google is the network’s competitiveness. Millions of people want to advertise using Google to reach the largest audiences.
If you’re working with a smaller budget, Bing might appeal to you more based on the lower CPC, but you’ll benefit from spending more on a platform like Google. Unlike Bing, Google gets the majority of search engine traffic, which means you’re more likely to reach audiences who convert and bring them to your website. If you’re simply getting impressions and views but no conversions, you’ll be wasting your ad spend. Bing might be much cheaper to advertise on, but you’ll likely wind up paying more on the platform to drive conversions than you would with Google.
Increased Conversion Rates
Expanding on the last point, with higher CPC comes higher conversion rates when you turn to Google for your ad campaigns.
Regarding the numbers, they’re close between Google and Bing. The average conversion rate seen with Google Ads is 3.75%, while Bing is slightly behind with an average conversion rate of 2.94%. If you want to boost your conversion rate with your ads, you’re typically better off going with Google here.
Smarter Algorithm
Another item to compare with Google and Bing is their respective AI. This technology is integral to a high-powered search engine. It allows for effective search engine optimization (SEO) along with PPC campaigns, giving people the most relevant search results based on a combination of artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities.
One recent AI test assessed AI’s intelligence quotient (IQ) for various popular search engines, including Google and Bing. The results showed that Google’s AI was the smartest of the bunch. Google scored the highest among the algorithms with a 47.28 IQ, which may seem very low compared to most humans, but it’s impressively high for search engines with a single primary function. Google’s AI also outperformed Facebook, which is arguably the most powerful social media advertising platform.
Meanwhile, Bing’s AI came in second with an IQ score of 31.98 , but it’s still considerably lower than Google’s.
Fewer Restrictions for Ad Copy
Whenever you create text ads on Google or Bing, you must adhere to certain guidelines they put into place.
Google’s guidelines for text ads include the following:
- Up to three headlines with a maximum of 30 characters each
- Up to two descriptions with a maximum of 90 characters
- One display URL with a maximum of 15 characters
Compare these to Bing’s guidelines:
- Up to two headlines with a maximum of 30 characters
- One description with a maximum of 80 characters
- One display URL with a maximum of 15 characters
These differences show that you have tighter restrictions with Bing Ads that you won’t find with Google. If you have more options regarding ad copy, this is great for testing different versions of your ads to see which performs best.
Google vs. Bing: Which Is Best?
Based on all these differences, we can conclude that Google Ads is a better platform than Bing Ads in many respects, but Bing does offer some advantages. If you’re looking to target older audiences with more purchasing power, or you want to engage in account-based targeting, Bing may work better for you. However, you’ll benefit from maximized reach, more targeting options, a more powerful algorithm, and many other advantages that are unique to Google.
Want to get started on a PPC campaign with experts you can trust to put together the perfect strategy? The team at Vigor Seorchers is here for you. We can build campaigns for Google and other platforms based on your unique objectives and goals. Reach out to us today to learn more about our capabilities and discover what we can do to enhance your marketing efforts.
Thank you! Best post I came across about Bing vs. Google.
Thank you Sir. Been thinking about doing PPC between these two search engines for quite some time.