Today, I want to share my Bing PPC Ads Case Study with you. I’ve used Bing PPC Ads for several years now. It has never been my PRIMARY marketing strategy. Instead, it was always just one more thing in my marketing arsenal.
Through the years, I have used Bing PPC Ads to promote my blogs, capture pages, affiliate offers and much more. Some campaigns have done very well, and others have been a complete disaster. Through trial and error, I have learned what works and what doesn’t work (for me anyway).
What is Bing PPC Ads & How Does it Work?
Before I get too deep into my Bing PPC Ads Case Study, it makes sense to take a moment and define a few common terms.
What is Bing?
Bing is a web search engine owned and operated by Microsoft. The service has its origins in Microsoft’s previous search engines: MSN Search, Windows Live Search and later Live Search. Bing provides a variety of search services, including web, video, image and map search products. ~ Wikipedia
It has been in business since 2009 and does business in approximately 40 languages.
What is Pay per Click Advertising (PPC)?
In case you aren’t familiar with the term, here is a simple definition of pay per click advertising.
Pay Per Click (or PPC advertising) is a form of paid digital marketing where advertisers pay a fee each time their ad is clicked. The term PPC can apply to paid ads on social media networks, like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. ~ DigitalMarketingInstitute.com
What is Bing PPC?
And finally, here is a definition of Bing PPC.
Microsoft Advertising is a service that provides pay per click advertising on both the Bing and Yahoo! search engines. As of June 2015, Bing Ads has 33% market share in the United States. ~ Wikipedia
In a nutshell, you open up a Bing PPC account. It’s free to create an account.
Next, you write a short ad. You then select keywords you want your ad to target. You then select how much you will pay per click. Your bid is competing against other people who are bidding on the same keywords. The person with the highest bid shows up first, the next highest person second, and so forth.
Whenever someone does a search on Yahoo, AOL, Bing, MSN or one of Bing’s partner sites, your ad appears. When someone clicks on your ad, you are charged for the click, based upon how much you bid. You set a daily budget outlining how much you are willing to spend each day. You then fund your account, your ads start, and there isn’t much for you to do except monitor your ads.
Why Should You Use It?
You should use Bing because it is the third most popular search engine in the world, right behind Google and YouTube. Although Google dominates the search engine world and has the biggest market share, Bing still has a nice piece of the pie, especially when you factor in MSN, AOL, Yahoo and the partner sites.
Bing is also the most affordable PPC platform that I have found. While Google and Facebook have bigger audiences, they are also much more expensive. Plus, both of those platforms are not too fond of the home business industry.
Bing is user friendly, affordable, easy to use, and they have great customer service. You can have an account set up and running in just a few minutes. Plus, they normally have a special where they give you $100 in free advertising after you’ve spent your first $25 (new customers only).
You should also consider Bing PPC Ads because you NEED traffic for your website or affiliate offer. Success online boils down to having targeted traffic see your offer. PPC Ads are some of the most targeted traffic you can buy.
My Bing PPC Ads Case Study
For this case study, I am using Bing PPC Ads to promote Wealthy Affiliate. Wealthy Affiliate is an affiliate program and training platform teaching people how to build their own money making niche website.
I have a budget of $80, which I will spend over a 3 to 5-day period of time. I’ll be targeting ALL countries with my ads. My goal is to get as many clicks as possible, as cheaply as possible, and see how the conversions end up.
After the $80 is spent, I will make a decision to keep using Bing PPC Ads to promote this affiliate program, or move on to a different marketing strategy. I’ll also decide if targeting only T1 countries will be a better business move.
I’ve created one campaign with six ad groups. My ads and keywords are designed to reach people who are looking to start a website of their own, or make money online.
My Traffic Results
My Bing Ad PPC Case Study is finally over. Here is a breakdown of the traffic I received during my experiment.
- Dates: February 19-23 (2019)
- Money Spent: $74.12
- Impressions: 54,124
- Clicks: 1,250
- CTR: 2.31%
Conversions
Here is how the traffic from my ad converted.
- Leads: 197
- Cost per Lead: $0.38 ($74.12/197)
- Sales: 0
- Account Profile Set Up: 21
- Earnings: $21 (I earn $1 for each person who sets up their profile and account)
My Takeaways
Here are my thoughts about the campaign.
Receiving 1,250 clicks for just $74.12 is amazing. I am very happy with my cost per click and the number of clicks I received with my budget. Paying $0.38 cents per lead is out of this world. Most of the time when I do online advertising I pay to per lead. The CTR (click through rate) was 2.31%, which in my opinion, is very good for a PPC campaign.
Most of the traffic I received was from India, Nigeria and the Philippines. These countries are not my BEST prospects for what I am offering, although some of these folks could become customers.
I have recouped $21 of the $74.12 back right out the gate. All I need is one of those 21 people to upgrade their account and become a PREMIUM member for three months and I will break even. Or, if any of the remaining 176 people set up their account and become a paid member, I can also break even.
I have decided to put my Bing PPC Ads campaign on pause for three weeks and just see if any of the remaining 176 leads (197-21) fill out their profile and/or upgrade their account.
At the end of three weeks I will decide to either turn my campaign back on, or test out a different marketing strategy.
March 2020 Update
I waited quite some time before publishing this update (over a year). None of the leads I generated using this experiment upgraded their membership with Wealthy Affiliate. It was not a total loss though. I learned a lot from this Bing PPC Case Study. If I was going to do things differently next time around, this is what I would do.
I would send people to my own capture page first, so I could follow up with these people at my convenience. Once people opted-in they would be redirected to my Wealthy Affiliate page. Yes, I would have less free memberships from the test, but I would have a lot of leads of my own that I could convert over a period of time.
Also, I would only focus on T1 countries in my next Bing PPC Case Study. I would only promote the website to people in the USA, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom and New Zealand. In my opinion, these are my best prospects.
Finally, I would only use the PPC platform to promote something where I could earn a few hundred dollars per sale. When you make $20 or less per sale, it is next to impossible to do a PPC campaign profitably.
What Others are Saying About Bing PPC Ads
Here’s what three other people had to say about Bing PPC ads and Bing.
I like Bing Ads because I can create my advertising campaigns with the assurance that they will be shown to the public that I need and which segment and CPC is very profitable for my average earnings. The investment I make per day can be sure that I will return successfully. I trust this Microsoft Advertising Platform and I keep investing my money with them, it’s EXCELLENT!
~ Victor J., G2.com
And…
More than 133 million people search using the Bing Network.
That’s almost half the population of the United States.
And even though it might surprise you, nearly 34% of U.S. desktop searches are on Bing.
So if you’re a marketer in the United States, you may be omitting one-third of your audience by not using Bing.
And…
We’ve mimicked our highest performing campaigns from other platforms on Bing Ads. Return on ad spend is consistently strong, proving Bing Ads to be one of the most reliable platforms.— Juliana Dean, digital marketing manager, Vegas.comVegas.com grew its click-through rate by 65% and decreased the cost per conversion by 20% using Bing Ads in its paid search strategy.
My Advice to You
If you have an affiliate program that pays generous commissions, or if you have a website you are trying to get more traffic to, I would definitely recommend experimenting with Bing PPC Ads. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. If it’s something you are willing to try out, do yourself a favor and head on over to YouTube to watch a few tutorial videos. They can teach you the ropes and help you set everything up. Plus, do a quick internet search for a free $100 Bing PPC gift card. They normally offer this to new customers.
Final Thoughts
I hope you have enjoyed my Bing PPC Ads Case Study. I’d love to hear your thoughts about my results. Have you used Bing PPC Ads before? If so, what was your experience like? Leave a comment below to let me know what you think. I look forward to hearing from you.
Suggested Resources
- Bing Ads Made Easy!
- Top 10 PPC Tips for Network Marketers
- How to Advertise on Google and Bing Effectively
Chuck Holmes
20+ Year Network Marketing Professional
Top Earner & Top Recruiter
Email: mrchuckholmes@gmail.com
P.S. Learn how to grow a successful network marketing business. Secret tips, training, and practical ideas. Free training delivered by email.
Very interesting case study, Chuck.
Thanks a lot for it!
I’ll take your findings, and run a similar campaign.
If enough people are interested, I’ll publish my results as well.
Cheers,
Tim
My best Bing campaigns are when I am promoting a product or service with high margins. It’s hard to make money selling a $5 or $10 product. However, if you can make $100, $200 or more per sale there is a lot of wiggle room. It also requires a lot of testing and tweaking. Sometimes, even just a few small changes to your ad can have HUGE results.
That was an interesting experiment…
I would be happy with 1,250 clicks as well. Though I do not personally use Bing as my search engine, I know many people that do. The Bing platform does try to show up on my searches however I don’t click.
I personally do not feel like I receive the information I am searching for, or maybe it’s the way that it is laid out that I don’t care for. With that said, I have never used the Bing PPC ADS personally before, but I always been curious about the PPC and how they work. This article has giving me a better understanding, and believe that I will be using them.
The more I use Bing for PPC and for my online searches the more I like them. Google might be the big dog, but they really dislike the MLM and home-based business industry, so I take my business where it is wanted.