How To Use Bing Product Ads For Your Online Store

Sure, the numbers are nothing like Google, but have you seen the numbers?

Image from bing

The information in the above image also takes into consideration Yahoo and AOL searches, which use the Bing engine. Even so, this is still a lot of traffic to advertise to!Not only are Bing Product Ads usually cheaper, you have finer controls to target your audience as well as the ability to target mobile devices over desktops.So let's walk you through the process of setting up a Bing Product Ads campaign.

Your first Bing Shopping Ads Campaign

Firstly, head to the Bing homepage and click ‘Sign up for Bing ads’.

Enter your email address to see if you can create a Microsoft account with it. If you can, click ‘Next. If not, choose the ‘Create new email address’ option.Follow the on-screen instructions and you’ll soon get to the screen below.

Here you have the option of importing your Google Adwords data. That would be very convenient, but it would not make the most of the features that Bing has to offer. So let's do it the long (and correct) way. Click 'Option 3: Skip this step' and hit continue.Then hit 'Skip' when requested for billing information. We'll get to all that after.

Bing Product Ads Keyword Research

Now, you should be on this screen. Select 'Tools' then 'Research Keywords'.

And you should now find yourself here.

Just like a Google Ads campaign, you're going to be bidding on words that will make your ad show up.And just like a Google campaign, the words you choose can make a massive difference on the overall effect of your campaign.Of course, the words that are mostly likely used for products are the most expensive, as they are the words buyers most often use when they want to buy something. Supply & demand.If you're an experienced campaigner and you can devote some time and energy in homework, you can use certain words to attract customers while they are still in the 'browsing','research' or 'window shopping' phase. But for the purpose of this blog, we will focus on attracting people that we know want to buy a product like the one we are selling.In both situations, though, it pays to do a little research. And that's what we're doing now.So let's say I'm selling jewelry that I make by hand and sell. I'm going to make my keyword 'buy jewelry'. That phrase has buying intent.  The person typing that query wants to buy it and they're the kind of people I want to see my ad.Here, we can also use some advanced options to see data from a specific country, great for fine-tuning your campaigns. You can also take it a step further and see how often specific terms have been searched for on a Desktop, Tablet or mobile.

There is a lot of information here! This one area where Bing outshines Google!After searching my term 'buy jewelry' I'm presented with a table of results.

Now remember - because we searched for 'buy jewelry' and simply not 'jewelry', the 'Last month searches' isn't of too much interest to us.The CTR and average CPC are what interests us the most. It shows us what term generate clicks and how much those terms cost us to associate our ads with that word.Bing themselves have a great video on why generic terms don't do as well as attracting customers compared to more specific terms.  We have our term much more specific by adding the word 'buy'. We may have overall fewer people that see our ads, but the people that do see our ads are more likely to buy.The Bing team have also just developed the nifty little Keyword Planner Tool.

To use this tool, click 'Search for new keywords using a phrase, website or category'.

Ad Groups

In a similar way to keywords research, you will search for a term.  You're then presented with 'ad groups'. Ad groups are a unique way in which Bing Product Ads associate keywords with other keywords.

''Campaigns are made up of one or more ad groups. Each ad group can be based on a theme of the campaign, and it's a good idea to have your ad group's name reflect its theme. For example, if your campaign's goal is to sell men's clothes, you might have ad groups such as "Dress shirts," "Coats and jackets," and "Spring sale."Later, I will put my keyword 'buy jewelry' in an Ad Group called 'jewelry'More info about Ad Groups can be found here.

New Ad Campaign

Now, you want to create a new Campaign.Click 'Campaigns' in the top menu bar, then click 'Create a campaign' further down the page.

The goal of our Bing Product Ads Campaign is to sell some products, so we want to click 'Conversions in my website' as the main goal of our campaign.

Name your campaign so it is easy to keep track of.  

Options for daily or monthly spending limits let your money go further and give you tight control over your spending.If you select 'Let me choose specific locations', this will allow you to target users in a certain geographic location. This is a great tool to use if you're trying to tap into a new market. Advertising in specific locations, coupled with other marketing techniques (like holiday promotions) can be a great way to attract customers in a new area.When you're ready, click 'Save & go to the next step'.Remember the Ad Groups from earlier? Well, this is where they come in. We will create our own Ad Group and place our own ad word in there.

In the top left, enter your website URL.  Bing will take a quick look at the vocabulary on your website and suggest other Keywords that may help you.   Underneath, enter the name of your Ad Group (something simple for your first campaign) and then enter your keyword that has buying intent.Underneath, enter the name of your Ad Group (something simple for your first campaign) and then enter your keyword that has buying intent.Bing will then suggest some other keywords related to your word.  Bing's suggestions may be slightly skewed if you're using a keyword with buying intent. You may find some relevant ones to add into your group, but remember, this is a very quick way to go through your advertisement budget.Click 'Save & go to the next step.On the next page, click '+ Create Ad'.

Ad Design

This is where you will enter the content that your Ads will display.Bing offer 2 kinds of ads. Standard Text Ads and Expanded Text Ads.The steps for both are quite self-explanatory. Enter the URL of the product or category you're advertising, Both titles and the ad text. You can even add a custom URL for mobile devices. Cycle through the preview buttons to see how your ad will look on different mediums.Bing have a very good article on how to best lay out your ads. A lot goes into this part of your ad, so take your time and do your research on what works for Bing expanded Text Ads. More general information about both kinds of ads can be found here.Once you're done designing, click save to close the Ad design window.  Ad extensions are a great tool, but something we'll save for another day.Click 'Save & go to the next step'.

Budget & Bids

In this window, you will select how your advertising budget will be spent. Think of it as an auction. Your keyword bid is the maximum price you are willing to pay each time your ad is clicked, but the actual cost may be much lower. If your bid is not higher than the competition, your ad might not get displayed in the top ranking search results.The expectation of an ad campaign varies.  So for the purpose of this example, we will use Bing's suggestion of a 20EUR per day budget.How much you bid for your ad to be placed somewhere depends on a few things.  We talk more about it here in our Google Adwords blog.Long story short, you need to figure out how much of your profit per sale you want to spend as well as your conversion rate.

Want to know more about increasing your ecommerce conversions?

Read the article:

25 Ways to Optimize your Ecommerce Conversion Rate (read now.)

More help (directly from Bing) about fine-tuning your bids specific for your required goal can be found here.For this example, we can afford to spend $2.25 per click.For your first campaign, we suggest taking a conservative approach.  Fine tuning and analysis of each spend can go a long way to helping you get the most of your ads.Once you have selected your budget and bids, click save.

Payment Methods

You will be taken back to the home screen and you will see an overview of your current campaign.

To make your ads go live, you need to set up a payment method. As highlighted in the above picture, we haven't done so! Click 'Add a payment method now'.The next page will walk you through setting up your payment methods. Please be aware that as a new customer, it may take up to 72 hours for your ads to go live.Now your Bing Product Ads campaign is set up and ready to go! Like most things in advertising, it pays to analyse and adapt if need be. Keep a close on on your budget and see if your advertising campaign is making a dent in your sales, or just a dent in traffic. Adding keywords to you Ad Group may take your money further, too.Bing Product  Ads may come in second to Google Ads, but it is a search engine that is quickly gathering pace and can still get your brand in front on many a new customer!