With Google owning 87.97% of the UK search engine market share (StatCounter, February 2015), and social PPC offering bigger and better advertising options than ever before, what does Bing bring to the table?

Bing’s 7.16% UK market share goes a long way if you’re targeting the right audience. So, what are the main benefits for advertisers?

Who uses Bing?

We’ve studied Google Analytics to understand the age and gender of search engine users, and the results are in:  an older demographic is using Bing, compared to Google.

In the example below, 43.17% of Bing visits are from people over 34, whereas only 29.9% of Google visitors are over 34.

 The above graph shows the percentage of Bing users per age group.

The above graph shows the percentage of Google users per age group.

Who is your target audience? A similar trend is replicated across various Google Analytics data, so if your ads are targeting the older population, chances are that you’ll increase your sessions by promoting your brand on Bing!

Do visitors from Bing buy more often or spend more?

After assessing a number of Analytics accounts, the e-commerce conversion rate can fluctuate by up to 44% in Bing’s favour! And despite occupying a smaller share of the search market, the average order value is often higher when someone shops from Bing. Google’s closest rival is proving to be quite a hit in driving qualified traffic with intent to purchase:

Where are Bing ads seen?

Many advertisers don’t expect the Bing audience to reach further than the people using Internet Explorer’s default search box. However, Bing’s search results are shown to more than just desktop, tablet and mobile search engine users:

• Xbox Live — At present, Xbox users can browse Xbox Live Marketplace content using Bing. The ability to search the web is looking to come into play soon.
• Siri — When Apple launched iOS 7, they enabled Bing as Siri’s default search engine. Users can switch to show Google results if they wish (or Twitter or Wikipedia), but whenever potential purchasers tell Siri to “search the web”, Bing advertisers have the opportunity to place their ads in front of a hands-free audience!
• Cortana — Of course, Microsoft’s answer to Siri is going to use the Bing search engine too.

Is Bing expensive?

If you’re advertising on AdWords and are struggling to keep your cost per click (CPC) low, allocating some of your marketing budget to Bing might be a good tactic.

We know that an influx of advertisers is a sure-fire way to drive CPC up, but as there is significantly less competition on Bing, advertisers are likely to get more click for their buck. A recent AdGooroo study confirmed these suspicions, with their test showing that, depending on industry, Bing ads were 37-77% cheaper than AdWords. However, Google’s platform still maintained the higher paid ad click-through rate.

If you want to find out more information about advertising on Bing, contact us today!