PPC
Bing Ads vs Google Ads: Which Should You Run?
A practical guide to Bing ads vs Google ads, with clear steps, common mistakes, and answers to the questions teams ask before they act.
•MICROSOFT ADVERTISING
Bing Ads Agency
Turn Microsoft into a channel that adds customers, instead of a copy of your Google account.
Imported Google campaigns usually carry the wrong structure, negatives and ad copy for this auction. We stop the sync, rebuild from native query data, add company and job-title layers, and report whether a Bing Ads agency deserves budget.
Bing Ads Agency
Get your Bing Ads strategy today
•Why Suff Digital
We judge this channel on what it adds, not on what a click costs.
We manage Microsoft Ads as a separate search channel, not a recycled Google account. You see what the network adds beyond your existing spend, which audiences behave differently, and where the budget should move next.
Speak with a specialist •
Matt Suffoletto
Founder & CEO
Kriszta
Chief Operating Officer
Tony
Partnership Director
•How we help
What Our Bing Ads Services Include
Microsoft Ads management works best when the account is built from Microsoft data, audience controls and query volume instead of copied from Google.
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•We stop the Google sync and rebuild the campaigns
The automatic import goes off and the campaigns are built against this auction: its own keywords, its own negatives, its own ad copy. Match types and bid ranges come from the volume actually available here, not inherited from an account many times its size.
•Bidding by company, industry and job title
LinkedIn profile audiences go on as bid layers over ordinary search campaigns, mapped to your named account list. The person is already searching for what you sell, so this raises the bid on the right ones rather than interrupting anybody.
•The Audience Network on its own budget line
Microsoft's native placements run separately, with their own budget and their own exclusion list. They never get bundled into search, because blending the two hides which of them is working.
•Your product feed on Microsoft's merchant surface
Product data submitted, diagnosed and kept approved here, where the requirements differ from Google's and disapprovals happen for different reasons.
•Where it breaks
Four things wrong with almost every imported account
We open a lot of these accounts. Almost every one has at least two of the four below, and none of the four are caused by the platform itself.
Diagnose my site •01
The imported account is drifting
A copied account spends unattended when it has no clear owner. Each month it moves further from the Google account it came from, because the import either overwrites local edits or quietly stops syncing altogether. The first sign of trouble is usually an unexplained bill.
02
Professional targeting is still switched off
You are paying to reach a professional audience and targeting them by keyword alone. On this platform you can layer company, industry and job function onto ordinary search campaigns. It costs nothing extra to apply, and it often ships switched off.
03
Conversions counted on some pages and not others
Automated bidding is working from a partial picture, because the tracking tag never made it everywhere. Usually it went on through a tag manager for the main site and never reached the checkout subdomain, the booking widget or the phone.
04
Partner site clicks are not being reviewed
A share of your clicks arrives from syndicated partner sites rather than the search engine, and it behaves nothing like the core network. It is on by default and reported separately, which is why so few accounts ever break it out.
Our Bing Ads Process
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Phase 01
Week 1
We check what your searches are worth here
We compare your Google query set against what is genuinely available on this network: which terms carry volume, which competitors are present, and where the two auctions diverge. The output names the queries worth building for and the ones that will never clear useful daily volume.
Phase 02
Weeks 1-3
We hand you the rebuilt account to sign off before launch
With the sync stopped, the campaigns get rebuilt for this auction and the platform-specific formats and extensions are filled in. Anything worth keeping from the imported structure stays because we chose it, and you sign the finished structure off before it goes live.
Phase 03
Weeks 3-5
We turn on the company and job title layers
The profile layers go on in observation mode first, so we can watch how they perform before they change what you pay. The layers that qualify traffic then get a bid uplift and the rest get excluded. You approve the account and industry lists first.
Phase 04
Monthly
We report what this channel added that Google did not
Each month the contribution is reported in incremental conversions rather than blended cost per click, measured against the same query set running on Google. You also get the audiences that behaved differently here, so the split of budget between the two networks stays a decision rather than a habit.
•Targeting Google does not have
Company and job title, applied to an ordinary search campaign.
Professional targeting normally means paying social-network prices to interrupt a buyer who was not looking for you. Here it works as a bid layer on people already searching for what you sell, which is a different proposition entirely. Most accounts leave it switched off, and turning it on costs nothing beyond mapping your customer profile onto it.
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A decision maker reached while they are searching, not while they scroll
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Applied to search campaigns you already run, so there is no second campaign to fund
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The professional layer reported on its own line, so its contribution can be judged
•Deciding whether to run it
The test a second search channel has to pass
A channel with fewer conversions can still deserve budget if those conversions are cheaper, better qualified or genuinely new. A lower cost per click means nothing if the traffic is recapturing demand you already had. We separate brand from non-brand and put the verdict in writing each quarter.
•What it costs
What sets the cost of running Microsoft Advertising
Two separate numbers. The media cost is set by the auction, your keywords, your geography and how many others want the same audience, and you pay it to Microsoft. Our fee is separate and moves with the work: how much of the account is rebuilt rather than imported, how many markets are in scope, whether the profile layers have to be built, and how much tracking is missing. We scope all four and fix the fee in writing. How PPC management is priced covers the fee models.
•What you keep
The account stays in your business's name.
Everything is built inside a Microsoft Advertising account your business owns and pays for directly. If we part company, the campaigns, audience lists, conversion history and the change log stay where they are, so the next team starts with a record rather than a mystery.
•What you get
Bing Ads Deliverables
Scope is agreed in writing before you sign, which is the least you should expect from a Bing ads agency.
Inside your Microsoft account
✓The rebuilt account, plus the change log — Campaigns built against this auction rather than synced across, and the log naming every place we chose to differ from Google.
✓The companies and job titles we bid up — The layers applied, the named account list behind them, and what each one is bid at.
✓Tracking tested on every path, phone included — Every conversion path tagged and tested, revenue values passed through, and offline import wired to your CRM.
✓Ads written for this auction, formats filled in — Responsive ads for this platform, with action extensions, filter links and multimedia ads populated rather than left empty.
✓How this account did next to your Google one — What Microsoft delivered against Google on the same query set, and where the next increment of budget should go.
✓The monthly read, and the next two changes — Cost per click movement, conversions reconciled against your own records, what the layers did, and the next two changes we plan.
Compare Bing Ads Services
Compare Bing Ads agencies by how they test incremental demand, rebuild imported campaigns and judge Microsoft results against their own baseline.
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Campaigns built on Microsoft, not imported
Us
Imports onlyAgencies
Imports onlyFreelance
In-house
Company and job-title layers applied
Us
SometimesAgencies
Freelance
In-house
Partner traffic split out and reviewed
Us
RarelyAgencies
Freelance
In-house
Incremental conversions reported against Google
Us
VariesAgencies
Freelance
In-house
You keep the account and the billing
Us
VariesAgencies
VariesFreelance
In-house
Suff Digital
Other agencies
Freelancers
In-house / DIY
Campaigns built on Microsoft, not imported
Imports only
Imports only
Company and job-title layers applied
Sometimes
Partner traffic split out and reviewed
Rarely
Incremental conversions reported against Google
Varies
You keep the account and the billing
Varies
Varies
Find out whether Microsoft is adding customers or recounting the ones you had.
We compare your Microsoft results with the Google baseline on the same query set, check the tracking, and send back a straight answer on whether the channel deserves budget.
•Frequently asked questions
Common Questions
Yes. Microsoft renamed the platform Microsoft Advertising, and Bing is still the search engine most people picture when they hear it. The names are used interchangeably, so a Bing Ads agency and a Microsoft Ads agency are describing the same platform and the same work.
•Learn more
PPC guides
Longer reads on the same subject, written by our senior team.
•Ready for real growth?
Find out what Microsoft is adding before you spend another month on it
Send us the Microsoft account and the Google account beside it. We check the query overlap, the tracking and the partner traffic, then come back with whether the channel is adding customers you would not otherwise have won.
✓A straight answer on whether the channel is worth running
✓A reply within one business day
✓Clear scope before launch
2,500+ businesses served
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•Related services
Services that support PPC.
PPC audit services
Check whether Microsoft is adding demand or duplicating conversions your Google account already wins.
Google Ads management services
Run the larger search account beside Microsoft with clean budget and tracking rules.
Paid social advertising services
Reach the same professionals in a feed when search volume is too thin.
Conversion rate optimization services
Improve the pages that turn lower-cost search clicks into leads and sales.
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