Tomahawk Blog

Bing Shopping: will you also advertise at a lower CPC?

For convenience, we still talk about Bing Shopping, but with the name change from Bing Ads to Microsoft Advertising, maybe we should say Microsoft Shopping. Anyway, Bing Shopping is finally available in the Netherlands! Currently, Bing Shopping is still in beta and is being rolled out in phases among all advertisers in the Netherlands. Since we as a Microsoft Advertising Partner already have access to the beta, our clients can already benefit from Bing Shopping! A perfect time to dedicate a blog to this topic. Because why are we so excited about this?

What is Bing Shopping?

Bing Shopping by Microsoft Advertising (formerly Bing Ads), is basically the same as Google Shopping, only for the Bing search engine. Bing Shopping Ads are product ads with extensive product information such as an image, price, product and brand. They are displayed at the top or right side with related keywords.

Why do you want to run Bing Shopping Ads?

The comparison with Google Shopping is, of course, easily made. So let's look at the differences that work in your favor!

Lower market share

By its own admission, Bing's market share in the Netherlands is 10%. A small share you might think. That's right. Still, you do tap into a new target group, namely the non-Google user. Plus, in absolute numbers, using Bing Shopping is a nice addition in traffic and revenue.

Not just impressions on Bing

Bing is Microsoft's default search engine. The company behind game consoles like the Xbox as well as the company behind the Windows operating system that runs on laptops, tablets and smartphones they produce. Because Microsoft also partners with Verizon Media, which runs Yahooandn AOL, there are plenty of places where your Bing Shopping Ads will appear.

Deploying the image extension

Google Ads ad extensions put even more of a spotlight on your Google Shopping Ads. One extension that Google does not offer but Bing does is the image extension. This allows you to show small a photo or other image in the ad that makes your ad stand out more.

Of course, you'll also miss things if you're used to Google Shopping. For example, Bing Shopping Ads are not shown on smartphones. On the one hand, this is a shame, because the share of online spending via smartphone is growing every year. On the other hand, it's not a bad thing. If you look at the first quarter of 2019 (according to the Home Shopping Market Monitor), it becomes immediately clear that with 46%, the laptop is still the most popular when it comes to online spending. Followed by desktop (28%), tablet(13%) and smartphone (12%). Also, your customers can't compare pricesandn providers in separate tabs. But ... what is not can still come, of course!

How do you set up a Bing Shopping campaign?

  • Do what we did for some of our customers and sign up for the beta by contacting Bing Ads
  • After you are approved you will find the Microsoft Merchant Center under tools.
  • Create a store, claim your domain via Bing Webmaster Tools or the Universal Event Tracking tag, set up and set up your Merchant Center.
  • Upload the product feed. You can use the same one as the one in Google Shopping or create a new feed
  • Import your Google Shopping campaigns into Microsoft Shopping or create new campaigns.

Get in touch

That's him! But of course you don't have to do this yourself, that's what we're here for. So contact us and we'll help you deploy Bing Shopping.

Working together?

I'm Roel, founder of Tomahawk. I am happy to help you from our office in Nijmegen.