Have you been considering Bing lately? Or conversely, writing it off with the assumption that the audience is too small to bother, especially since it’s up against the giant that is Google?

There are many reasons to look at the Bing search network if you are in the consideration phase of a media plan. Bing is small but mighty, and is growing mightier every year. Here are some of the main benefits to Bing that we consider when planning:

• We’ve noticed that Bing’s performance and search volume has been improving, especially in the last three to four years. Historically, it has done well in the Prairie provinces, skewing towards the 45+ age group. While this is still true, we are seeing performance pick up in both BC and the east coast, making Bing a viable option for national campaigns as well. If you are wanting to run a search campaign targeting several high population locations and don’t have the budget to effectively reach them in Google, Bing is a strong alternative.
• If you do have the budget and want to reach more people searching, not just within Google’s network, Bing campaigns also have access to Yahoo, AOL, MSN, DuckDuckGo, and Ask.com to name a few. This will allow your campaign to “cover all the bases” in terms of search audiences. There isn’t a lot of overlap either, as Google users and Bing users are typically different. In most cases, both are relying on their preset search engine on their devices, and won’t flip back and forth often.
• Bing has access to LinkedIn audiences through LinkedIn’s profile targeting, making it a strong choice for B2B campaigns. This targeting feature allows campaigns to access LinkedIn targeting by company name, industry and job function. As well, a lot of companies use Bing as the preset default search engine for their employee’s work computers, so campaigns that are targeting business-related search phrases, such as IT services or business products, perform strongly and reach the right audience.

So how much should you spend on Bing? As a good rule of thumb, we have noted that a 4:1 ratio (Bing:Google) is a good place to start with a new campaign that has no historical data. However, we also recommend reviewing your website analytics data to compare the organic search data of Google versus Bing, as well as running the keyword planners for both platforms to have a better view of search volume for planned keywords.

If you’d like to chat about how a Bing search placement can help your campaign, or learn more about any of the benefits listed above, please feel free to reach out to Nichelle Schulz, Director of Search at nschulz@mediology.com.