The overlooked ad network that quietly beats Google on CPA.

Microsoft Ads (Bing) reaches around 700M users across Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, Edge and MSN, typically with 30–60% lower CPCs than Google. The audience skews older, higher-income and B2B-friendly, and competition is thinner, so the same campaigns often deliver lower CPAs. It's incremental volume, not a Google replacement.

We bundle Microsoft Ads into a single monthly retainer if managed alongside Google Ads, or as a standalone engagement starting around £1,500/month for SMB accounts. The setup work is similar to Google's, UET tag, conversion tracking, structured campaigns, but ongoing optimisation tends to take less time than Google because the auctions are quieter.

Microsoft owns LinkedIn, which means Microsoft Ads can target by job function, company name, company size, and industry, data you cannot access on Google. For B2B campaigns this is a genuine moat: you can layer LinkedIn-style audience targeting onto search and shopping campaigns at search-CPC pricing.

For most B2B businesses, yes. The audience skews towards business decision-makers, the LinkedIn targeting overlay is unique, and CPCs are lower. The catch is volume, Microsoft is roughly 5–10% of Google's UK search volume, so it works best as a complement, not a replacement.

Yes, and we usually do for the first iteration. Microsoft has a one-click Google import that brings campaigns, ad groups, keywords and ads across, plus an automatic re-sync option if you'd rather have Microsoft mirror Google. We then differentiate the Microsoft account where it earns its keep, bidding, audiences, asset variations, rather than running a clone.

Microsoft Ads CPCs in the UK are typically 30–60% lower than Google for equivalent queries, especially in B2B and finance verticals. Quality Score, ad rank and bidding mechanics work the same way; the difference is competition density. Lower CPCs don't always mean lower CPAs, conversion rates vary by audience, but the gap is meaningful.

Headlines and descriptions can be the same, but landing pages and offers should match the audience skew. Microsoft's audience is older and higher-income on average, so messaging that lands on a younger Google audience can underperform here. We test creative variants per platform when budget supports it.

Microsoft uses the UET tag (their equivalent of Google's gtag), installed once site-wide and configured to fire conversion events on key actions, leads, purchases, signups. We pair this with the Microsoft Conversion API for server-side tracking on key conversions, the same belt-and-braces approach we use on Google.