Microsoft has come a long way in the Search network, from a market share of just over 2% in 2009 to 6.84% today.
It’s grown a whopping 41% from 2019 alone, against the dominant entity that is Google, this is still an amazing feat, and the platform is only getting stronger. Microsoft’s desktop market share is also much larger in some of the worlds biggest economies. In the US market share is 36%, Germany share is 24% and the UK is 22%.
Here we explore some of the latest features Microsoft is implementing to make the platform stronger for users and advertisers alike:
Private Search For Microsoft Bing API
Now search partners of Bing will be able to give consumers more options for a privacy-first experience. Hosted on Azure, a private proxy is created between the private search site/app and Bing’s private search API, allowing Bing to serve the search results without actually knowing what keyword triggered. This may prove detrimental to some advertisers but it has the upward effect of greatly increasing consumer confidence with a site that their data is within their control.
Price Comparison Beta
Before, making a search for a product would return a lot of search results and mean more time is needed just to compare prices from different vendors. Now you can see detailed ratings, expert reviews, product specifications, price history and multiple sellers. Clicking on the product details will show deeper insights such as price trends and history. If you don’t have the funds now to make a purchase, a tracker can be put on that will notify you when it is at a level you can afford!
Video extension Beta
A particularly exciting feature is the use of Video Extensions for Search ads on Bing! Now when a user makes a search, a small thumbnail will appear next to the ad. Once a user clicks it, a video overlay will appear above the display text, where with mobile, it appears in the same frame as the text. Users then have the choice to click a call to action you can append to the video. Given how the significance of video is continuously growing, this a great addition to accompany your search ads and create a truly impactful message to your audience.
New Audience Network Features: Facebook Import
The Microsoft audience Network is already a powerful tool but time is money, now if advertisers have already got campaigns set up on Facebook, they can now import those campaigns into Microsoft, saving a wealth of build and planning time! 10,000 campaigns and ad groups can be imported per Facebook account, with a high level of flexibility in being able to import very specific aspects of those campaigns should you wish.
There are some best practices to take into account, however:
- Set up your audience targeting to boost your audience campaigns performance
- Check how your assets preview in the ad preview before you fire up your campaigns
- Review Microsoft image guidelines to ensure your ads can be used, you can view these here for video and images
- Using the Audience planner in advance can give a general overview and forecast of your audiences reach/performance that you’re using from your Facebook campaigns or want to target on Bing specifically
It should be noted only single image ads can be used for now as there’s no support for carousel or video ads yet.
New Automotive Ads
Are you running ads for an automotive business, well Microsoft has now released a new feature to benefit you! With the introduction of automotive ads, car dealers now have access to a shopping based ad format that can easily serve their entire inventory of vehicles using keyword-less campaigns and product feeds
These ads are designed to aid advertisers in the following ways:
- Reach new car shoppers who are in the product comparison and consideration stage of their journey
- Generate more qualified leads through the use of image assets and prices to help users make the most accurate choice
- Save time with automation by having your ads served in campaigns without keywords and updating automatically via your product feed.
Offerings from your feed are matched automatically to automotive-specific queries, and the ads will show up alongside your regular text ads to help improve CTR further.
Microsoft Audience Network expansion and Video Ads
To wrap everything up, MSAN is now expanding into more markets with New Zealand, Australia and Canada soon going to be given access to the platform.
Video ads are now also coming to MSAN! However, this is only being piloted in the US for the meantime, but we do know that you can utilise videos up 120 seconds long and all standard video type formats will be allowed to be used
Conclusion
That’s it for our list of updates, all of which are exciting new features bound to make the Microsoft Ads platform stronger than ever. If you still want to learn a bit more about Microsoft ads and the possibilities they can achieve, have a look at a few of these articles as well:
