Microsoft Ads: Why Most Brands Underinvest in Bing Search

Ask most paid search managers where their budget goes, and the answer is almost always the same: Google. Google Ads dominates paid search budgets because Google dominates search volume, and the logic seems straightforward. Go where the users are.

But that logic has a blind spot. Bing holds 10.35% of the global desktop search market and reaches 36% of the US desktop market. It processed over 900 million daily searches as of early 2026. Microsoft Advertising generated $13.88 billion in net ad revenue in 2025. This is not a fringe platform. It is a significant channel that most brands either ignore entirely or fund with leftover budget and minimal strategic attention.

The result is a persistent gap between opportunity and investment. For advertisers willing to take Microsoft Ads seriously, the rewards include lower costs per click, access to a distinctive audience demographic, and targeting capabilities that Google simply does not offer.

The Audience You Are Missing

The most common objection to Microsoft Ads is reach: "Nobody uses Bing." The data tells a different story.

Bing reaches over 1 billion unique visitors monthly. Its users skew older, more educated, and wealthier than the average Google user. Demographic data shows that 54% of Bing users are married and 59% have children living with them. The largest age group is 25 to 34, but the platform has a notably strong presence among users aged 35 to 54, a cohort with higher household incomes and greater purchasing authority.

This demographic profile matters. If you are selling B2B services, financial products, professional software, or anything targeting decision-makers with spending power, Bing's audience is not a consolation prize. It is a high-value segment that your Google campaigns may not be reaching at all.

Why Bing Users Are Different

Bing is the default search engine on Microsoft Edge, which comes pre-installed on every Windows PC. It is also the default search provider in Microsoft 365, Outlook, and Windows search. Many of these users are corporate employees searching from work devices where IT policies prevent changing the default browser or search engine.

This creates a built-in audience of professional users during business hours, exactly the kind of traffic that B2B and enterprise advertisers pay a premium for on other platforms.

The Cost Advantage Is Real

Lower competition on Microsoft Ads translates directly into lower costs. Microsoft reports an average CPC of $1.54 across its platform, which is 42% less than Google Ads' average of $2.69. For competitive industries like legal, insurance, and financial services where Google CPCs regularly exceed $5 to $10, the savings on Microsoft Ads can be substantial.

Why CPCs Are Lower

The cost difference is driven by lower advertiser competition, not lower quality. Fewer brands bid on the same keywords, which pushes auction prices down. Click-through rates on Microsoft Ads are comparable to Google for equivalent query types, and conversion rates are often similar or better because the audience skews towards higher-intent, higher-income users.

For brands already running Google Ads profitably, Microsoft Ads often delivers comparable or better ROAS simply because the cost of acquiring each click is lower. The audience may be smaller in absolute terms, but the economics are more favourable.

What This Means in Practice

Consider a brand spending $50,000 per month on Google Search ads with an average CPC of $3.00 and a 4% conversion rate. That produces roughly 16,667 clicks and 667 conversions at a CPA of $75.

Moving 15% of that budget ($7,500) to Microsoft Ads at a $1.75 CPC and the same conversion rate would generate 4,286 clicks and 171 conversions at a CPA of $44. The blended CPA across both platforms drops, and total conversion volume increases. This is not a theoretical exercise. It is the typical outcome when brands actually allocate meaningful budget to Microsoft.

LinkedIn Profile Targeting: The Feature Google Cannot Match

Microsoft acquired LinkedIn in 2016, and one of the most valuable outcomes for advertisers is the integration of LinkedIn profile data into Microsoft Ads targeting. This allows you to target search ads based on a user's company, industry, and job function, data pulled directly from their LinkedIn profile.

How It Works

Within Microsoft Ads, you can add LinkedIn profile targeting as a layer on your search campaigns. The available dimensions include:

• Company: Target users who work at specific companies by name.
• Industry: Target by industry vertical (technology, healthcare, finance, and so on).
• Job function: Target by role category (marketing, sales, engineering, executive, and others).

You can apply these as bid modifiers (increase bids for users matching the criteria) or as targeting restrictions (only show ads to users matching the criteria). The first approach is generally recommended, as it preserves your reach while prioritising high-value users.

Why This Matters for B2B

On Google, if someone searches for "enterprise CRM software," you know the intent but nothing about the searcher. On Microsoft Ads, you can know that the searcher works at a Fortune 500 company in the technology industry in a director-level marketing role. That context transforms how you bid, what ad copy you show, and which landing page you send them to.

Microsoft Ads delivers this targeting at an average CPC of $1.54, compared to LinkedIn Ads' average CPC of $5 to $9. You get LinkedIn-quality professional targeting at a fraction of the cost, and the user is in a high-intent search context rather than passively scrolling a social feed.

Practical Applications

• Account-based marketing: Target search ads to employees at your named account list. When someone from a target company searches for your product category, you appear with tailored messaging.
• Decision-maker prioritisation: Increase bids for users in executive or management job functions. Their clicks are worth more because they have purchasing authority.
• Industry-specific campaigns: Run different ad copy and landing pages for healthcare versus financial services searchers, even when they use the same keywords.
• Competitive conquesting: Target employees at competitor companies searching for terms related to your product category.

Getting Started: Import from Google Ads

One of the strongest arguments for testing Microsoft Ads is how easy it is to start. The platform offers a direct import tool that pulls your Google Ads campaigns, including campaign structure, keywords, ad copy, bid strategies, and extensions, into Microsoft Ads with minimal manual work.

What Imports Well

• Campaign and ad group structure
• Keywords and match types
• Responsive search ads
• Sitelink, callout, and structured snippet extensions
• Bid strategies (with Microsoft equivalents)
• Negative keyword lists

What Needs Adjustment

After importing, you will need to make several adjustments:

• Budget: Microsoft Ads will not generate the same volume as Google. Start with 10 to 20% of your Google budget and scale based on performance.
• Bids: CPCs are lower on Microsoft, so your Google bids may be higher than necessary. Monitor and adjust within the first two weeks.
• Audience layers: Add LinkedIn profile targeting to relevant campaigns. This is incremental value that does not exist in your Google setup.
• UET tag: Install the Universal Event Tracking tag on your website for conversion tracking. This is Microsoft's equivalent of the Google Ads tag and is required for accurate attribution.
• Copilot placements: Review your ads' eligibility for Microsoft Copilot placements, where ads can appear alongside AI-generated answers in Bing. This is an emerging format worth monitoring.

Why Brands Get Microsoft Ads Wrong

Treating It as an Afterthought

The most common mistake is importing Google campaigns and forgetting about them. Microsoft Ads requires its own optimisation cadence. Search term reports, bid adjustments, and ad testing should be reviewed independently, not assumed to mirror Google performance.

Applying Google Budgets

Allocating the same budget to Microsoft as Google will either underspend (if set too low for impression share) or overspend on low-quality traffic (if forced to hit a high daily target). Right-size the budget based on available search volume in your category.

Ignoring the Audience Opportunity

Running Microsoft Ads without LinkedIn profile targeting is like running Meta campaigns without custom audiences. It works, but you are leaving the platform's most distinctive capability unused.

Not Tracking Separately

Microsoft Ads conversions should be tracked through the UET tag, not inferred from Google Analytics source data. Direct tracking gives you accurate attribution and enables Microsoft's automated bidding to optimise effectively.

Who Should Prioritise Microsoft Ads

Microsoft Ads is not the right channel for every business. It delivers the strongest results for:

• B2B companies: LinkedIn profile targeting combined with lower CPCs makes Microsoft the most cost-effective paid search channel for reaching business decision-makers.
• Professional services: Legal, financial advisory, consulting, and other services targeting high-income professionals align well with Bing's audience demographics.
• Desktop-heavy industries: If your customers primarily search from desktops (common in B2B, enterprise software, and professional services), Bing's 10.35% desktop market share translates to a meaningful opportunity.
• Brands with mature Google programmes: If your Google Ads campaigns are already well-optimised and hitting diminishing returns, Microsoft Ads is often the highest-impact channel to add next.
• Ecommerce with competitive Google CPCs: If you are in a category where Google Shopping and Search CPCs keep rising, Microsoft Ads offers a pressure valve with lower costs and similar conversion intent.

The Bottom Line

Microsoft Ads is not going to replace Google as the primary paid search channel for most businesses. But that is not the point. The point is that a platform reaching over a billion users monthly, with lower CPCs, wealthier demographics, and LinkedIn-powered professional targeting, deserves more than leftover budget and a once-a-quarter glance.

The brands that allocate 10 to 20% of their paid search budget to Microsoft Ads and manage it with the same rigour as their Google programme consistently see lower blended CPAs and incremental conversions that Google alone would not have captured.

If you want to explore how Microsoft Ads fits into your paid search strategy, or want a second opinion on whether your current channel mix is leaving money on the table, get in touch. We run both Google and Microsoft programmes and can help you make the case for rebalancing.