Introducing Bing Ads Part 5
The
Introducing Bing Ads Part 4
Getting Started With Bing Ads
So now you know precisely what Bing Ads is, why it matters and how it works. You also know how to create a PPC campaign generally, and you know how to select the right keywords, etc.
What’s left?
Oh yes, actually getting started and creating some profitable ad campaigns!
And with that in mind, let’s launch straight into setting up some campaigns and doing a tour around Bing’s options and tools…
Before we get started, I am going to assume that you a) have set up a Bing Ads account by going here(you can use your existing Microsoft account) and b) you have chosen your keywords using the advice in the previous chapter.
Importing Google AdWords Campaigns
Here’s the good news – if you already have a Google AdWords campaign set up, then getting that campaign to work on Bing is as simple as importing it from there to your site. Doing this is easy. First, head over to the link on the far right that reads ‘Import Campaigns’ on your Google Dashboard.
Now click ‘Sign into Google’ and then enter your name and password. On the next page, you will be asked to select the AdWords campaigns that you want to import. Choose them and then click ‘Continue.’ Now, under Bing Ads Account & Import Options, you’ll just need to add a few more settings that are unique to Bing.
What to Do In Bing
- Choose the Bing Ads account you want to import to
- Select the right time zone (remember that Bing allows more flexibility in this department)
- Find the button under options ‘What to Import.’
- What are your bids and budget?
- Now just click import, and the process is complete
Remember we said earlier that the best way to handle Bing Ads was to use them on top of a Google AdWords campaign. This is why it makes a lot of sense to import an existing AdWords campaign into your Bing account simply. It couldn’t be simpler!
Setting Up a New Campaign
But if you don’t have a Google AdWords campaign or you want to try something different on Bing (this is a good place to experiment with different strategies!), then you’ll want to click ‘Campaigns’ and then ‘Create a Campaign’.
Now you can choose between ‘Search & Content Campaigns’ which will display regular search ads, or ‘Product Ad Campaigns’ which will show products with images in your search ads.
You’ll be asked to
- Give your campaign a name
- Select your time zone,
- to set your budget (which can be daily, weekly, monthly etc.),
- Set a language.
- Chosse a location
You can also choose whether you want to show your ads in all locations, or whether you want to show your ads only in specific locations. You can also target people searching for information about your location from elsewhere – for instance, that might be someone looking up hotels or amenities in an area they intend to visit!
Crafting your Bing Ads
Now you’ll have to write your ads. To do this, you choose your type of ad and then give it a headline. Remember what we discussed earlier – this headline is not designed to get the maximum number of clicks but rather to get the right kind of clicks. You’ll then want to write your ad text, which will let you use a little more detail. Underneath this will be your display URL and destination URL. You might choose a root domain for your display URL if your destination URL uses a long permalink.
Specifics
- Headlines are 25 characters
- Ad text is 71 characters
On the next page is where you’ll be given the option to choose your keywords, set keyword bids and then verify ‘activation’ (meaning you set the method of payment and also click that you want the ads to go live). Refer to the last chapter for more on selecting the right keywords.
On the next page, you’ll be able to choose your bid for each keyword. So you might decide that some keywords are worth more to you than others. This is very good news because it means you can pay very little for those more obscure keywords that would only get you a few clicks but that likely wouldn’t be very expensive due to a lack of competition.
Managing and Tracking Campaigns
The good news is that you can tweak and manage your campaign subsequently after it has gone live as you would expect. This means that you can see how it is performing and then see how they are working for you. You’ll be able to find some more advanced settings here too, such as negative keywords and dynamic keywords. We’ll look at these options in more detail in the coming days.
For now, though, we want to focus on the other most important aspect of running your Bing Ads campaigns.Which is tracking the success of your adverts?
Starting Small
It is important to realize that not every ad will be successful. however, by starting on a small budget you can find out everything you need to know. I personally never start at more than $15 a day. This tells me everything I need to know.
Once a campaign has been tweaked to be successful, then is the time to ramp up the campaign. Never rm,ap it up to more than you can afford, because circumstances can change quickly.
In this case, that is going to mean looking at how your ads are performing for you. And there are some really great advanced features here that actually go a bit and above what you would have access to with AdWords.
We’ll delve into these in more detail in the next chapter. But for now, make sure you are watching your basic metrics like a hawk. Just click ‘Standard Reports’ and then select any one of the 18 different performance reports to get your statistics. You’ll be able to see things like your average CPC (cost per click), CPM (cost per impression), CTR (click through rate) and more!
Introducing Bing Ads Part 3
Targeting
Another thing that most PPC ad networks have in common is the ability to ‘target’ a specific demographic. This means that you can identify who your ‘buyer persona’ is and profile your ideal customer and from there, then target that person specifically with your adverts.
Search terms
The way you do this with both Bing Ads and Google AdWords is by targeting search terms. When you pay for these ads, you are literally putting your adverts on the SERPs relating to particular search terms. You do this by choosing a keyword, or ‘keyphrase,’ which is going to be the thing that you want people to search for in order to find your site.
So for example
If you were selling a hat, your ‘keyphrase’ or keyword phrase would probably be ‘buy hat online’ or ‘cheap hats’ etc. This is now a targeted ad because it lets you advertise specifically to people who are looking to buy the thing you have. There is a buying cyle for people and when paying for ads you need to connect to people at the correct point of their buying cycle.
Are those Leads Qualified?
That means they will fit within your target audience and actually, this makes them ‘qualified leads’.A qualified lead means that they are super interested in buying your offer.
Narrow down Your Keywords
Another way this might work is by going the slightly longer-term route and focussing on search terms related to interests. You might have a site where you blog about fitness for example and sell supplements and training clothing. In this case, your keyword might be ‘how to lose weight’ or ‘fitness articles.’ However, the term how to lose weight is far too broad to target in a pay per click campaign, because a lot of the people that are looking for that information are freebie seekers.
A good keyword is going to be one that is both popular with your specific target audience, and that is not overly competitive. We’ll look at this in more detail in the subsequent chapters.
Rounding out the ‘holy trinity’ of PPC networks is Facebook Ads. Facebook Ads is similar to Google AdWords or Bing Ads in terms of being PPC. The particular difference is where the ads are visible and how they target your audience.
As you might have guessed, Facebook Ads are displayed on Facebook and will appear in the homefeed and sidebars while you are browsing. The feed shows ads which are directly targeted to the person using Facebook.
The way this differs is that the ads are targeted based on information that the user has given Facebook – information such as their age, their sex, their marital status, their location and even their hobbies and interests.
This information allows you to even more precisely target the right person but not necessarily at the right time when they’re looking for products. When someone is browsing Facebook to catch up with their friends, they’re more likely just to be frustrated to see adverts popping up.
With all this in mind, Facebook Ads is another useful platform to add to your campaign in conjunction with Bing and Google AdWords – just make sure you’re using the right ads for the right location!
Creating a Great PPC Campaign
As you can see then, PPC works a little bit different from ‘traditional’ advertising in magazines and on TV. You are no longer paying for a single advert and nor are you paying for exposure. Instead, you are paying directly for clicks, and that means you need to think about things a little differently.
The first concept to make sure you understand is that your aim is not necessarily to get as many clicks as possible. Traditional advertising campaigns will often focus on doing anything they can to get attention and encourage clicks. But seeing as you’re paying for each click, you can actually reduce the amount you’re paying in total by reducing the amount of clicks you get. In fact, you actively want to reduce the amount of clicks you get to the people who are interested in buying.
You Are Targetting Buyers
Your objective is not to get as many people as possible to your website.
Your objective is to get as many customers as possible to your website.
In other words, you need to get traffic that is going to convert, and you actually want to dissuade all other people from clicking on your ads wherever possible.
If you pay for 100 clicks and 99 of those pay for your product, then you can consider that a highly effective marketing campaign. Conversely, if you pay for 2,000 clicks and 300 of those people buy – it’s actually not been as successful because you can have spent more on ads, than the profit.
Of course, this depends on the price of your product. if your product gives you a commission of £1,000 then you are still in profit. I personally never pay for adverts on low commission products its just too time consuming.
PPC and Your Business Model – Selecting Your Budget
What this essentially tells us is that the bottom line is by far the best way to gauge your success. A good PPC campaign is not one that gets seen a lot, not one that gets clicked a lot…
A good PPC campaign is one that EARNS a lot!
That means it is impossible to separate your PPC strategy from your general business model. And it makes it very important to think about your budget, your costs, and your profit margins whenever you set up a campaign.
So start by thinking about the profits for whatever it is you’re selling from your site. If you’re selling lots of products, this might mean working out an average profit you make from those products. Otherwise, if you’re linking to a ‘sales page’ and predominantly selling just one product, then it will mean thinking about how much you make from that one item.
Do the Math
First, that means calculating your CoGS – this is ‘cost of goods sold, ’ and it tells you how much it costs you to make each of your products. Let’s say that you sell phone cases – this will mean paying for the materials, the manufacturing, the delivery and the storage. Then you have to minus these overheads from the amount you charge for each item. Your profit margin that is gross profit is the difference between these two figures.
The great thing about digital products like ebooks or online courses (which is what a lot of website owners sell), is that you have zero overheads and that means that you’ll make 100% profit on each sale. An ebook that you sell for $30 will give you a $30 profit, less your advertising costs and productions costs.
That said, ebooks appeal to a smaller audience when compared with physical items and thereby you can expect to have a smaller conversion rate. Which is the next point.
Know Your Conversion Rate?
So here, you need to calculate how many visitors on average buy your products from you. This mean analyzing your ‘conversion rate’. If you have 1,000 visitors a day and one sale, then that means you have a .1% conversion rate. If you make 10 sales for every 1,000, then that means that you now have a 1% conversion rate.
This can then tell you how much you’re earning in a day. For example, if you have 1,000 visitors a day, a 1% conversion rate and a product that earns you $20, then you will earn $20. That also means that you can work out how much you are going to be able to earn if you increase your visitors. If you could double your visitors, you should make $20 on average. If you can multiply them by ten, then you should make $200 on average.
More importantly for your Bing Ads, though, this also tells you how much each visitor is worth to you. If 1,000 visitors = $30, then that means that each visitor is worth 3cents.
Introducing Bing Ads Part 2
Introducing Bing Ads Part 1, CLICK HERE.
Bing The Massive Opportunity You Can’t Afford to Miss
And one last thing to consider is that Bing offers a lot of opportunity for the savvy SEO/webmaster. Why is that? Simply because Bing is lesser known and there are fewer people trying to rank there. Likewise, there are fewer people paying for PPC. That means that you’ll pay less per click and you’ll find it much easier to get to the top of the SERPs. Introducing Bing Ads Part 2 will tell you how.
Specifically? You’ll pay around 33.5% less on Bing compared with Google AdWords. In real terms, that means 33.5% more traffic, for the same cost!
Bing SEO
A lot of people never consider Bing SEO, and they don’t know what the key to succeeding there is.
That means that the 30% of traffic to be found there is ripe for the taking. It means you can do a little background research and then just swoop right in to get to the top of the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages). You’ll be in a smaller pond, but it will be much easier to get the fish biting.
Use Bing To Get Better In Google
And what you also have to understand is that this can then lead to more knock-on effects for your Google Ranking too.
Think about it: if you get to the top of Bing, then that leads to a lot of exposure to 30% of the web. This, in turn, means that you end up landing more backlinks and getting discussed in more forums and more comments sections. The same goes for paying for ads on PPC. You can use this as your ‘way in’ to boost your position in Google’s SERPs as well as to generally increase your brand without directly challenging the biggest players in your niche.
Eggs and Baskets
And apart from anything else, if you completely rely on Google for all your traffic, you put yourself at risk of something going wrong when Google changes its policies (which it does all the time) or should something go wrong with Google.
Look, this is a book about Bing Ads, but that doesn’t mean we have to be unrealistically biased toward Bing here. There are still plenty of good reasons to prioritize your Google AdWords campaign; the biggest being simply that Google AdWords lets you reach a bigger audience. But with that said, it makes a lot MORE sense to make sure you’re on both. The Google apocalypse may never come, but you should still have a contingency plan in case it does!
Microsoft Ecosystem
Finally, think about the kind of person that is likely to be deeply ingrained with the Microsoft ecosystem. Who is likely to use Microsoft software suites and hardware? Simple: businesses. That means executives, CTOs and managers. And that means they’re also likely to be looking at Bing. If that’s your target demographic, then you should strongly consider adding Bing ads to your campaign.
More Reasons That Bing Ads May be Better Than AdSense
There are more reasons that Bing might be the better choice for building an effective PPC campaign. For example, Bing offers superior control over ad campaigns in some aspects. For example, Bing allows you to set different ad campaigns for different time zones, allowing for sophisticated ‘ad scheduling’ strategies. This can end up making an important difference to your success – as in comedy, timing is everything for marketing.
Likewise, Bing allows you to set things like location and language for each ad group, rather than for each campaign. Bing also allows more precise device targeting, letting you set different bids for different types of devices. It also allows you to choose which search partners you want to work with, and it makes it easier to leave out variations of your search terms in order to create a more focused campaign.
And one little side note…
Oh and on one little side note? Bing is much better looking than Google. Those daily features images really give Bing a relaxing, and modern feeling and the animated ones, in particular, can actually be reason enough in some cases to head on over to the site.
Surely it’s worth showing Microsoft some love for that…
How Bing Ads (And PPC) Work
At the most basic level, Bing Ads work like Google AdWords. So if you’re familiar with the concept of PPC in general, you can probably skip over some of this.
Still here? Then let’s quickly recap.
Essentially, PPC ads are ‘Pay Per Click’ ads.
That means that you will literally be paying per click – paying for each person who clicks on one of your adverts. The reason that this is such good news is that you will never pay anything for a campaign that was a complete failure. If you create an advertising campaign for Bing and not one person looks at it, then it will cost you literally nothing.
What this also means is that you can precisely calculate the cost of each visitor to your site. This is important because you can then use that information to calculate how much each customer is worth and thereby start making very accurate projections of your earnings/identifying the best ways to spend your money.
Cost Per Click
So the next logical question is how much you’re going to spend on each click. And the good news is that you get to choose this. You get to choose your maximum spend, and you also get to choose your budget for the day.
First, you define your CPC or ‘Cost Per Click’ which is going to be the maximum amount of money you are willing to spend for each new visitor. You’ll probably want to keep this fairly low – the most that brands will generally tend to spend is up to $2 but even that is unusual. Generally, though, you’ll want to set this a bit lower, and your average will probably come in around 10-20cents.
The next thing to do is to set your daily budget.
Once the accumulated clicks you’ve received reach this amount, they will then stop, and you won’t spend any more money. So in theory, if you set your CPC to 20 cents and you set your daily spend to $20, that should mean you get 100 visits to your site for that amount.
But things get a little more complicated seeing as you don’t tend to spend the full amount of your CPC. That’s because there’s a bidding system that takes place which means you’ll offer to spend a lot less.
The way this works is simple.
If there are two or more adverts both competing for the same space on Bing, then they will enter into a ‘bidding war.’ The ad with the highest CPC will be the one that wins and gets shown. But the owner of that ad will have only pay the minimum amount that it needed to win. The easiest way to understand this is to think of it just like eBay – on eBay, you can set your maximum bid, but you’ll only end up paying $1 more than the next highest bidder. The same is true with most PPC campaigns, and that’s why you end up spending 33.5% less on Bing vs. Google – because the lower amount of competition means that your CPC won’t be as likely to get driven up.
In Conclusion
And of course, you also need to consider that your ads will be shown a lot to people who don’t click. You don’t pay anything for these ads, but that doesn’t mean they’re worthless to you because you’ll still be getting exposure and you’ll still be building your brand!
Introducing Bing Ads Part 3
Introducing Bing Ads
If you’re looking to promote your brand online, then the first place to look is to PPC campaigns. A PPC campaign is of course ‘Pay Per Click’. That means that you pay each time a user actually clicks on one of your ads. There are several things that make this a fantastic way to generate traffic, which we’ll look at later.Introducing Bing Ads is better than fighting with Google.
Pay Per Click
For now, though, suffice to say that PPC gives you the precise control that any advertising campaign needs and allows you to build a perfect business plan with a precise advertising spend, target demographic and profit margin.
But when it comes to PPC, only one word will often come to mind: Google AdWords. Google AdWords is by far the biggest PPC platform and the one that most new marketers will go to first.
There Are Other Options Out There.
And actually, focussing on only Google AdWords can be a big mistake for your campaign. We’ll look in more detail at why this is in the coming chapters but suffice to say that Google AdWords is actually more expensive, more competitive and less precise in many ways.
This is where Bing comes in. Bing can help you to reach an entirely different section of your market while avoiding direct competition with some of the bigger competitors in the field. As we’ll learn, Bing can offer you the perfect ‘back door’ and even help your rankings on Google. It’s the perfect starting point for the small, lean business and a very wise ‘backup’ source of traffic for ALL online businesses.
Bing and how it differs From Google.
You’ll learn why it’s crucial to start paying attention to Bing and you’ll learn how to take advantage of all its unique features. At the same time, we’ll also be going in depth looking at the best practices for creating successful PPC advertising campaigns on Google OR Bing, and we’ll see how you can use this as part of a comprehensive business plan.
Wake Up To Bing
Whether you’re interested in using Bing ads, or you’re just thinking about doing more search optimization for Bing, it’s time that you stopped forgetting this search engine and focussing entirely on Google. Let’s be honest – most of us don’t really practice SEO (Search Engine Optimization), we practice GO (Google Optimization). Google is the first and last word in internet marketing as far as a huge proportion of internet marketers and SEO agencies are concerned.
But it’s time to change that way of thinking. But why? Why break the habit of a lifetime?
Well for starters, Bing has 20% market share.
That woke you up, right?
Many of us think of the search engine industry as being a one-horse race but that’s really not the case. 20% is actually a pretty decent chunk of the market.
And when you consider that Yahoo! Also, makes up around 10% still – and that Bing is powered by Yahoo that number goes up to 30%. This is a serious amount of web traffic!
Now ask yourself: in what other scenario would you be happy to let 30% of a market walk? If I told you that you could get 30% more visitors to your highstreet store by changing your shop name, you would change it in a heartbeat!
30% of potential visitors means 30% of potential customers and 30% of potential profit! Instead of earning $50k a year from your website, you could be earning $65K a year just by paying attention to Bing. That’s a massive different (and a free holiday). And there are plenty more reasons to wake up to the reality of Bing as well.
For starters, Bing is integrated with Windows 10.
Windows 10 is the latest iteration of Windows from Microsoft and it comes with Bing deeply ingrained into the system. What’s more, is that Microsoft says this is the ‘last version of Windows ever’. That is to say that future upgrades to Windows are going to be iterative rather than complete overhauls. So we can safely say that Bing is there to stay.
Not only is Bing the default search engine for the default ‘Edge Browser’ (which comes with some neat tricks up its sleeves) but it’s also the search engine used by Cortana. Cortana is a digital assistant like Siri that now lives on your desktop. If you want to find out the weather for instance, you can simply ask Cortana while you’re typing and she’ll pull results from Bing and tell you. Bing has also recently made the transition to Android and iOS and is found nicely
This means that even if someone should set Google as their default search engine, they’re still likely to be using Bing on their desktop without realizing it just by speaking with Cortana.
If they ask ‘what does hypertrophy mean?’, Cortana will open up Bing and show the results in the browser. That could be your website.
And the same is true if they own an Xbox One. We don’t have the exact sales figures for Xbox One right now (Microsoft are remaining tight lipped about them) but we do know that they’re in excess of 25 million around the world. Xbox One comes with a lot of home-entertainment functions including a browser that you can use while playing games or chatting on Skype.
And guess what search engine the Xbox One browser uses?
While the Xbox One isn’t quite the massive success that Microsoft hoped for (PS4 has the lead at the moment), the company is getting great reviews in all other departments and is generally considered to be firing on all cylinders at the moment. Examples of this can be seen with the success of Windows 10, the Microsoft Band and the Surface line of hardware. Then there’s the huge buzz surrounding the HoloLens. HoloLens is a piece of ‘Mixed Reality’ hardware that might well introduce the world to a new form of computing.
And guess what search engine it will use?
Anything could happen in the next few years to upset the apple cart and lead to Google losing market share. For example, Apple have repeatedly threatened to ditch Google as the default browser on iPhone and this could very easily lead to a seismic shift for the search landscape.
Then again it might never happen. But the question is: can you afford to take that risk?
Are you happy knowing that all your eggs are in Google’s basket?
Introducing Bing Ads. Part 2 tomorrow.
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