It May Be Time to Include Bing Ads In Your Marketing Mix

"It's only just about Google online..."

"Just worry about your rankings on Google, don't worry about anything else."

"Interested in advertising online? Put it all in Google."

Raise your hand if your digital marketing employee/agency/guru of choice has uttered any of the phrases above. Truth be told, we've also said these same things.

Well, my friends, the times are a-changin'. And I would be lyin' (had to) if I said any of the above today!

What's changed? Adoption of Windows 8 is growing and it features pretty deep integration with Bing by default.

It may be time to add Bing Ads to your digital marketing mix.

What you see above is a monthly breakdown of operating system usage in 2014 (along with December 2013...more on that soon) from W3Schools.

What's the one line you see that had a trend of increasing month-over-month in 2014? Windows 8. The dark blue line had a very consistent upward trend. Now, look at December 2013 to January 2014 specifically. Four operating systems had a positive bump from month-to-month (in order of least impressive increase to most impressive) :

• Linux grew by 0.1%
• Mobile grew by 0.2%
• Mac grew by 0.4%

Windows 8 grew by 3.4%...and continued to grow, sporting a 7.1% growth rate over the course of 2014

So, the trend tells us there will be a bump this January, too!

So, now you're saying, "Great, Adam, Windows 8 is growing. Why does that mean it's time to look at Bing Ads?"

Bing is being integrated more and more into the Window ecosystem. By default, if you bring up the charm window on the right-hand side and hit search, you look for files on your local machine AND you'll notice suggestions below that list. These suggestions are directly from the Bing search engine. Tap on any of those suggestions and you'll be brought to a custom search engine result page. This page does not have ads on it, but it has an easy-to-spot "Powered by Bing" logo at the bottom.

And let's note forget, Bing is the default search engine for Internet Explorer. (And the metro version is superb) .

So, yes, more people are using Windows 8. And with deeper integration with Bing, some may make the switch based on familiarity alone.

Any Firefox users in the house?

You may (or may not have) noticed a change in your default search engine...

Yahoo! is Firefox's new default search engine.

And, if you didn't know, Bing Ads are displayed on Yahoo!.

This relatively new change isn't going to result in a huge shift (it's relatively easy to switch default search engines, anyway), but it's just another way that Bing is increasing traction.

And let's face it, most Internet Explorer users aren't the tech-savvy type that are changing their default search engines willy-nilly (sorry to anyone I just offended).

There is one big disclaimer...

Some audiences skew toward Internet Explorer users, some audiences do not.

You have the power to check whether or not Internet Explorer (and Windows) users are visiting your site right now...

Well, you should have the power (I'm assuming you have Google Analytics available because what's a website without Google Analytics?) .

Log into Google Analytics, click Audience then Technology and finally Browser & OS. And check out the resulting information. (You can click Operating System directly underneath the graph to check out that relevant information, too.)

What does this all mean!?

If you've neglected Bing Ads 'simply because,' you should take some time to see if there's enough volume of IE/Windows visitors to your site for your to consider Bing Ads.

Fortunately, MKG Marketing has experience managing Bing Ads accounts. If you're spending money on online advertising, and have never looked into Bing Ads as an advertising platform, contact our team! We can dive into your website's analytics to see if Bing Ads may be a good fit, and can even set up a trial Bing Ads account. Because, you never know...