Microsoft Advertising (earlier known as Bing ads) is a good alternative online advertising option for Google AdWords. The advantage of advertising with Bing ads is that the ads can be displayed in all Microsoft networks like Bing, AOL and Yahoo search. This is good opportunity for you to drive traffic from different user base and from countries across the globe. With the increasing market share in search engine space advertising through adCenter undoubtedly will attract more users to your site.
Note: We have used many functions from old Bing Ads interface as they are similar in the new Microsoft Advertising interface. If you do not find the option, use the search box in Microsoft Advertising and find relevant settings.
How to Get Start with Microsoft adCenter?
It is very easy to start your advertising campaign with Bing Ads. Go to Microsoft Advertising and use your existing Microsoft id to login to Bing Ads account. If you don’t have a Microsoft id sign up to get the one from the same page. It is necessary to understand the basics of advertising before starting to create ad campaign. As a customer you create one or multiple accounts with Bing ads. The structure of creating ads inside Bing ads is indicated below, you can assign any ad/keyword to an ad group and any ad group can be assigned to any campaign.
To make things simple Bing will automatically assign an ad group when the campaign is created. You can modify this ad group and customize as per your need. Once you logged into your Bing ads account, follow the below steps to create your first ad campaign.
Creating Campaigns in Bing Ads
Click on the Campaigns Tab and then click “Create Campaign”. You can create two types of campaign – “content & search campaign” and “shopping campaign”. In this guide we will focus on “content & search campaign”.
You will see campaign creation screen with lots of options grouped under three categories for customizing your ad.
1. Campaign Settings:
Here you define the basic objectives of the ad campaign.
Provide the name for your campaign, time zone and language of the ad. There are two important settings you need to finalize under campaign settings – one is the budget and other is the location. Bing ads offers two budgeting options – daily and monthly. Set your budget limit and choose daily or monthly option from the dropdown.
Daily budgeting allows you to choose whether you want to spend the amount evenly throughout the day (standard) or spend as quickly as possible (accelerated). The monthly budget will be default in an accelerated mode and the amount will be spent as quickly as possible. Under locations and advanced locations options you can choose the targeted country and the audience to whom you wanted to show your ads. You can drill down the country to state/province to a postal code level.
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2. Create an Ad
Under this section you need to define the actual ad parameters like ad type, title, text and URL.
3. Choose your keywords
Under this section enter your keywords for which your ads will be shown on the search and content network. You can define how the keyword should be matched by choosing one or multiple types – exact, phrase, broad and content.
Bing will suggest the bid amount for first page and other options. You can choose one of the available amount as it is or choose your custom bid value for your ad. Once filled all required detailed on the page click on the “Save” button to create your first ad campaign in Bing ads.
Ad Groups
As explained above, ad group is the container having ads and keywords. When a campaign is created Bing will automatically create an ad group with the name “Ad Group #1”. You can either edit the ad group or create different ad groups and assign to the campaign. Under “Campaigns” tab click on “Create an ad group”, similar to campaigns you can select different settings for ad groups or use the same campaign settings.
It is necessary to have a campaign created beforehand and the campaign is to be assigned to an ad group. You can create multiple ad groups and assign to different campaigns on your account. Define style of your ad, add keywords and save your changes. The saved ad group can be seen under “campaigns” tab under “Ad Groups” section.
Click on your ad group name and then the settings tab to edit advanced settings.
Here you can change the bid and choose targeting options for the ads part of the ad group.
Under “Advanced Settings” section you can modify the scheduled dates for the ad group and choose the distribution model. Once the scheduled dates are in past the ad group will be expired and there will be no ads displayed.
Under “Ad distribution” you can choose where exactly you want to display the ads. Ad distribution options vary based on your country and the “content network” option is only applicable for customers from United Stated.
Import From Google Ads
Bing ads allows you to import ad campaigns directly from Google Ads. This option helps to import your existing Ads ad campaign into Bing ads seamlessly.
Billing and Payments
Unlike Google AdWords, Bing ads accepts PayPal payment for selected countries like United States and United Kingdom. Navigate to “Accounts & Billing” section under the settings icon on top right.
Under “Billing” tab you can view the current balance or due, payment method and other billing related details.
Microsoft Advertising Tools
Click the Tools menu to see various tools offered by Bing ads.
For example, “Bing Ads Editor” is desktop application you can install on your PC and maintain all campaigns offline. Download “Bing Ads Editor” and manage your search campaigns from your desktop. This helps you to save time and improve the performance of your campaigns, whether you’re online or offline. You can do changes offline and then sync it online by uploading your revisions with one click.
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Bing Ads Reports
Click on the “Reports” menu to see plenty of reports available in left side menu bar under different categories – performance, change history, targeting, campaign analytics and billing and budget. Select the required report, customize the columns and run to see the results or download to local PC.
It is also possible to schedule the report to receive it on your email and cancel the scheduled report at any point of time later.
Dashboard and Opportunities
The opportunities tab shows in case there are situations to improve your ad campaign. And the home tab shows quick modules of graphical and tabular data as a customizable dashboard.
Note: You can anytime delete the account and reactivate again by contacting Microsoft support.
