Advertising at Microsoft has over the years been treated as an also-ran; but very quietly, it has turned into a very fine gold mine-caves for marketers to dig into. Indeed, though Google Ads blatantly rules the worldwide roost when it comes to paid-for traffic, it actually has a complete treasure town available on Microsoft’s platform.
Rise Well: A Network Beyond Bing
Microsoft Advertising is much more than a simple moniker; it boasts an extensive reach among a wide variety of partner sites, including Yahoo and AOL. This, of course, means millions of other potential customers that you can miss with a Google-centric approach.
Microsoft Ads: Why this is the Secret Weapon for Battle
Here is how Microsoft Advertising changes the game.
Cost-Effective Champion: Buckle your seat belt because you can expect both lower CPC and reduced competition compared to Google Ads. It means expanding its reach while maximizing return on investment (ROI) can be a lot cheaper.
B2B Targeting Bull’s Eye: Target your B2B audience to perfection. Microsoft will allow you to do this with LinkedIn integration to target by company, job title, and industry.
Unique Audience Network: MSAN goes beyond search. These are the people you can reach through premium native placements across Microsoft properties such as MSN and Outlook.com as well as select publisher partners that make their advertisement space on these products available for client purchases.
Building Successful Campaigns on Microsoft Ads
Building up winning campaigns on Microsoft ads, however, is knowing the right way to do it:
Structuring Well: Don’t just copy Google’s advertising structure. Microsoft Ads has a distinct search volume. Organize campaigns with focused ad groups for performance maximization.
Mastering Keywords: Not exclusively on broad match keywords. Combined use of exact match, phrase match and carefully managed negative keywords, targeting aims.
Bidding Brightness: Place initial bids a little higher to gather data faster. Unshackle site and then target CPA when enough conversion data is received for the best results.
Ad Formats for All: Beyond that, enter into the realm of text ads: enter RSAs, multimedia ads for eye candy, as well as vertical industry-specific ads for travel, automotive, and finance segments.
Tracking Winners: The Universal Event Tracking (UET) tag should be put in place to track conversions as well as user behavior meticulously. That’s the key for you to be able to fine-tune the campaigns for the only good results.
Ditch the Myths: Microsoft Advertising is a Powerhouse
Some of the myths that simply do not hold iota against Microsoft Ads:
Myth 1: It’s a Mini-Me of Google Ads: Not a chance! Microsoft Ads strikes out by itself due to its several features like LinkedIn targeting and industry-specific formats of advertising.
Myth 2: Low traffic: Not at all! It’s more like an audience of haves with a more educated than average household making them very tempting as potential customers.
Myth 3: No significant volume: Every day, millions of users become associated with Microsoft Ads. It provides access to a large segment of the audience, especially on desktops and, in certain markets.
Myth 4: It’s Used for B2B Only: True, Microsoft Ads can do wonders for B2B applications but it can value-add more to other industries as well. Use its targeting options to reach your ideal customers, no matter the trade.
Myth 5: It is Just Too Complicated: Today’s modern tools come up with a simplified approach to actually manage many systems. Just a very dedicated Microsoft Ads campaign would often outperform a simple converted Google Ads campaign.
Embrace the Power of Two: Google Ads and Microsoft Ads
Don’t kill the Google Ads. Think of it as a tag team. Microsoft Ads is one part of the Google Ads team, and the most cost-effective way to continue targeting audiences that you might have missed.
Pass Up Import Google Ads: Build to Last
Importing from Google Ads sounds pretty sexy, but it usually means you end up with some pretty sub-optimal campaigns. Creating bespoke Microsoft Ads campaigns enables all those platform-specific optimizations and tuning possible for the end result to be better. That means really unlocking what you can do on that platform for a higher ROI.
Such understanding of the inherent strengths exhibited by Microsoft Advertising, coupled with implementing methodical campaigns therein, will empower you to be ahead in the fast-evolving world of digital marketing. So, why wait? Explore Microsoft Advertising today!
