While most of the world’s search traffic volume flows through Google each year, that doesn’t mean that other search platforms have no value to marketers. Most digital marketers might opt to focus on Google Ads alone simply because of the volume of activity on Google-branded search platforms and other sites, but doing so ignores the totality of web traffic. Microsoft, owners of the Bing search engine, have recently rebranded Bing Ads as Microsoft Ads and the company is promoting the value of using its platform. Here are a few things to know as you start your Pay Per Call campaigns and other digital marketing efforts on the new Microsoft Ads platform.
Read More: Microsoft Advertising vs Bing Ads – What’s Different, What’s the Same, and What’s Predicted to Come?
The Audience and Value of the Microsoft Search Network
If you’re wondering if it is even worth your time to learn the ins and outs of a new ad platform, simply consider the following figures on the Microsoft Search Network’s audience in the US:
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There are 116 million unique desktop searchers on this network
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49.4 million searchers are not reached on Google
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5.5 billion monthly desktop searches occur on the network
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Microsoft Search Network accounts for 36.2% of US desktop search in all
While Microsoft Ads is a rebranding of Bing Ads, it is worth noting that you aren’t simply targeting Bing users in learning how to launch Pay Per Call on Microsoft Ads. Your ads will feature on Bing, as well as MSN, Yahoo, AOL, and any other sites powered by Bing. So, here’s how to get started.
Read More: How to Use Bing Ads for Your Pay Per Call Campaign
Create Campaigns and Build Ad Groups
You can sign up for Microsoft Ads for free, and once you do you can get down the business of creating campaigns. We won’t take a deep dive into how you can create each campaign as the Microsoft Ads system has step-by-step guides you can follow. There is one thing worth noting though in this step and that is ad groups. Once you have a campaign built that targets your audience in the best manner through channels that work for your brand, don’t forget to include ad groups that target your ads to specific audiences of consumers. Make sure the ads and keywords used within are relevant to your target audience.
Choose Keywords
On a related note, the success of any ad campaign (Microsoft Ads or otherwise) lies in choosing the best keywords. While it is always useful to brainstorm the keywords and search terms you believe your audience will use, make sure you consider other options. Microsoft Ads has a campaign-keyword tab that lets you search new keywords based on your own generic terms, search websites for keywords, or even search destination URLs for keywords. Once you have a list of valuable keywords, make sure to include them in your ad content.
Read More: How Many Keywords are Too Many Keywords?
Optimize
Finally, the last basic step you’ll want to take once your campaigns are built and active is to optimize your new Microsoft Ads. This includes looking into negative keywords, ad targeting, and dynamic text. Negative keywords block your ads from display in search queries that include your terms but don’t match your ads. Targeting ensures that only the audience that matches your target audience sees your ads. You can limit your ads however you like based on age, gender, location, and even time of day. Lastly, dynamic text uses the specific keywords of searches in the title of your ad text to capture their attention.As with any digital marketing platform, it is important to test and retest your ad content on a regular basis. Pay attention to increases in call volume based on which ads your audience sees with your business number, what platform they saw those ads on, and even what locations the majority of calls originate from. You can use this information to continuously optimize your ads to target those valuable audiences.
Read More: How to Use Negative Keywords in Your Pay Per Call Campaign