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Microsoft Advertising vs Google Ads
Microsoft Advertising vs Google Ads
March 2023
Microsoft Advertising is probably the 2nd biggest Pay Per Click platform after Google, and although generating much lower levels of traffic, it still can be an important source of leads or revenue for any website.
The structure of a Microsoft Advertising Account is very similar to Google, and many of the features available in Google are also available in Microsoft. There are however some aspects where Microsoft differs from Google.
Enhanced Bidding
In both Google and Microsoft you can set a campaign to enhanced bidding, which automatically adjusts the bids, based on how likely it is for the click to result in a conversion. While you can opt out of this in Google, you cannot in Microsoft. The enhanced bids can deviate quite a lot from the manually set bids, but there is no data to back up that some of the traffic has a higher conversion rate, to justify the increased bids.
Microsoft's Search Networks
Until recently, Microsoft served ads on “Bing and Yahoo Search”, “Syndicated Search Partners” and the “Microsoft Audience network”. The latter not to be confused with Audience segments that you can target (such as in-market audience segments). Instead, the audience network consists of so-called “native” sites such as MSN and outlook.
Syndicated Search Partners (SSP)
Within the SSP network we have come across many websites that generated traffic, but which were very unlikely to result in leads or orders, but other websites have been shown to generate conversions. Hence completely excluding the SSP network could mean valuable traffic gets lost. Fortunately, there has always been an option to exclude (low quality) websites, but it does require continuous monitoring, as there seems to be a constant stream of new websites added to the SSP network.
Microsoft Sites and Select Traffic (MSST)
Microsoft then announced a change to their networks, which we thought would deal with the low quality traffic generated through the SSP network. They are now running with “Microsoft Sites and Select Traffic”, which is the old “Bing and Yahoo Search” network, combined with the high quality websites previously in the SSP network. We're not sure which of these websites have actually moved to the MSST network, and it seems quality websites such as duckduckgo.com (generating traffic with decent conversion rates), are still an SSP rather than part of the MSST network.
With quality websites still part of the SSP network, excluding this network is still not a sensible option, and we are back at monitoring SSP traffic and excluding low quality websites unlikely to generate converting traffic.
Microsoft Audience Network
Within the SSP network we have come across many websites that generated traffic, but which were very unlikely to result in leads or orders, but other websites have been shown to generate conversions. Hence completely excluding the SSP network could mean valuable traffic gets lost. Fortunately, there has always been an option to exclude (low quality) websites, but it does require continuous monitoring, as there seems to be a constant stream of new websites added to the SSP network.
Previously we could set up a bid adjustment on this Audience network, and with the Audience network often generating traffic at much lower conversion rates, this was an ideal way to keep the cost of the Audience network down. Unfortunately however, Microsoft has taken away this option, so you could be paying as much per click on traffic from the Audience network as you are paying elsewhere.
Recently we have seen an increase in this type of traffic, with in one extreme case where from virtually no audience traffic, it suddenly generated almost 750 clicks in 5 days, at a cost of £800 without generating any conversions. By comparison, on the other search networks, 11 conversions were generated from £700 spend in the same period. So once more, continuous monitoring of where your traffic is coming from is essential.
If you would like us to check over your Microsoft account to see how much you are spending on traffic you might not want, give us a call! We can help you to eliminate that traffic and continuously monitor your account to keep your cost down.
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Sayu is a full service digital marketing agency with 20 years of experience in delivering digital marketing campaigns for businesses of all sizes, from startups to global brands. Proud to be recognised by Google as a Premier Partner, being among the top 3% of Google's partners in the UK