Bing Ads Management: What Microsoft Advertising Is Actually Worth

Microsoft Advertising, still widely called Bing Ads, puts your ads on Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, and inside Windows and Copilot. Bing held 8.92 percent of US search in August 2026 against Google's 86.1 percent, so it will not replace Google Ads. It earns its place a different way: the clicks cost less, competition is thinner, and a Google campaign can be imported in minutes.

How much of the market Bing actually holds

Start with the honest number, because most articles on this subject do not. StatCounter put Bing at 8.92 percent of US search in August 2026, with Google at 86.1 percent. Anyone telling you Microsoft Advertising is a Google replacement is selling something.

What that share represents still matters at a local level. Roughly one search in eleven in the United States happens somewhere Google Ads cannot reach, and share runs higher on desktop than on mobile. For a business selling to people at a work computer, which describes a lot of B2B and professional services in the Baton Rouge market, the desktop skew works in your favor.

It also matters more than it used to because of where Bing now sits. It is the default in Microsoft Edge, it backs DuckDuckGo, and it feeds parts of Copilot. Those are not places a Google campaign appears.

Why the cheaper clicks are the point

The reason to run Microsoft Advertising is not reach. It is price, and the price gap comes from thinner competition. Fewer advertisers bid on the same keywords, so the auction clears lower.

Industry analyses consistently put the average cost per click on Microsoft's network around 30 percent below Google's for equivalent terms, and the gap widens in expensive categories where Google bidding is fierce. Treat that as a directional figure rather than a promise, since your own numbers depend on your industry and your geography.

The practical version for a small budget: the same money buys more clicks, which means you learn which keywords convert faster. We often run Microsoft alongside Google for exactly that reason, and the search work is included with every plan rather than billed as an extra. Our pay-per-click page covers how the two run together.

What the two certifications cover

BlakSheep Creative holds both Microsoft Advertising certifications, which are exams rather than badges you buy.

• Search Certification. Account structure, ad types, bidding strategy, budgets, and targeting on the search network. This is the one that matters for a business trying to appear when somebody searches for what it sells.
• Native and Display Certification. The audience network, which places ads on MSN, Outlook, and partner sites based on audience signals rather than a typed query. Useful for awareness and retargeting, and a different job from search.

A certification proves someone passed an exam on the platform. It does not prove results, and any agency implying otherwise is overselling a credential. What it should tell you is that the person running your account has read the manual.

When it is worth running

• Google Ads already works and you want more of it. The clearest case. You know your converting keywords, and Microsoft gives you the same ones cheaper.
• Your buyers are on desktop at work. B2B, professional services, industrial supply, and anything sold during business hours.
• Your category is expensive on Google. Legal, insurance, HVAC, and restoration all clear at painful prices on Google. The relief on Microsoft is real.
• You have a small test budget. Cheaper clicks make a $300 test informative instead of inconclusive.

When it is not worth it

• You have not made Google Ads work yet. Fix the campaign that reaches ten times the people first. Microsoft will not rescue an offer that is not converting.
• Your audience skews young and mobile. Share is thinnest exactly there.
• Your budget only supports one channel. Splitting a small budget across two platforms usually means neither gathers enough data to optimize.

If you are still deciding between paid and organic at all, pay-per-click advertising explained is the more basic starting point.

What managing it actually involves

Running Microsoft Advertising is not a set-and-forget import. The recurring work is small but it is real, and it is where an unmanaged account quietly wastes money.

• Search term review. Bing matches more loosely than Google in our experience, so the negative keyword list needs feeding more often, not less.
• Network separation. Search and the audience network behave nothing alike. Blending them in one campaign hides which half is working.
• Bid resets after import. Google bids land in a cheaper auction and overpay from day one.
• Device and schedule splits. The desktop skew is the reason to be here, so it should be visible in the reporting rather than averaged away.

We manage Microsoft Advertising alongside Google as part of pay-per-click management, and the search work is included with every plan rather than billed separately.

How to start

Microsoft Advertising has a direct import from Google Ads that carries over campaigns, ad groups, keywords, and ads. That is the fastest route, and also the most common mistake, because an imported campaign inherits Google's bids and settings without inheriting Google's auction.

Import, then go back through it: reset bids to reflect the cheaper auction, review the network settings so search and audience are not silently blended, and cut the keywords whose volume does not exist on Bing. Then let it run long enough to be worth reading.

If you would rather hand it over, we manage Microsoft Advertising alongside Google for businesses in Baton Rouge, Denham Springs, and nationally. Call (225) 505-3834 or book a fifteen-minute discovery call and we will tell you honestly if your budget is better spent on one platform.