Microsoft has been on a journey to innovate and disrupt web search. Search has become easier and more compelling with our plan to make Bing more visually immersive.
How is Microsoft innovating for visual storytelling? We now show a collage of image and video content at the top of the search results page, while our right rail of search results presents information in a fun and beautiful way, incorporating a richer experience into Bing Search, Windows 11, Microsoft Start, and much more.
Get inspired with intuitive, interactive search results
Collage of image and video content at the top of a Microsoft Bing search results page
Quickly get informed with infographic-inspired experiences
Interactive and informative content in the Microsoft Bing search results page right rail
Personalised results to include news and topics of interest
Personalised Microsoft Start homepage
Why is this important? Our brain processes visual content at an incredibly high speed. By one estimate, visuals communicate information 60,000 times faster than text.
Additionally, content with imagery results in 50% more recall.
In today’s age of big data, people are receiving much more information than ever, and visual content can uniquely cut through the static.
How can this benefit your advertising campaigns? Now, you can stand out with more engaging and appealing experiences. We’re excited to announce the general availability of Multimedia Ads in all markets where Bing is available! You can now serve Multimedia Ads on the Microsoft Search Network and Microsoft Audience Network. This responsive ad format uses Microsoft machine learning to combine images, headlines, and descriptions to create relevant high-impact visual ads.
Example of a Multimedia Ad in the right rail of a Microsoft Bing search results page
Examples of Multimedia Ads
- Multimedia Ads can help catch a consumer’s attention with large visual imagery that showcases your brand and products to increase visibility, interest, and sales. Furthermore, there’s only one Multimedia Ad per page. This way, you ensure that you stand out and get noticed among your competition.
- Multimedia Ads leverages Creator tools, which are available directly in our Microsoft Advertising platform. Creator tools enable you to extract images from your site, and with Creator tools smart effects, you can quickly edit your images such as background blur, colour, filters, and cropping.
- Use the Bulk Application Programming Interface (API) and Editor tool to create or modify Multimedia Ads in bulk across accounts more efficiently and quickly.
- Today we’re serving Multimedia Ads on Bing, Yahoo.com, the Microsoft Audience Network, and Image vertical. Shortly, we’re looking to expand to new search surfaces and new experiences like Multimedia Ads for Dynamic Search Ads (DSA), and Retail.
Use of Multimedia Ads in search advertising campaigns
During times of uncertainty, every dollar counts. As brands and agencies look for budget optimisations and efficiencies, Multimedia Ads offer an excellent opportunity to have a brand impact while focusing on the solid performance of search campaigns. The feedback from clients during our pilot reinforces this strategy:
- Looka, a logo design and branding company, leveraged Multimedia Ads to build brand awareness, in which Multimedia Ads accounted for 25% of revenue generated by Looka's customer acquisition campaign. The return on ad spend (ROAS) has been a stunning 200% higher than the return on expenditure with text and search ads.
- ADT, a security company, was the first in their industry to test Multimedia Ads. The test was a success and resulted in a significant increase in leads generated and customer acquisitions. In addition, ADT was thrilled to see a 9.5x higher ROAS, a decrease in cost per click (CPC), and improved results in both paid search ads and Multimedia Ads for their search terms.
- VodafoneZiggo, a telecom company, conducted an A/B test with Multimedia Ads and saw 45% more delivered impressions than the original campaign. Their CPC dropped by 9% and saw an 85% increase in conversions, doubling the impact.
As we head into the holidays, Multimedia Ads can be a critical way to catch attention to drive more sales and leads for your business. Check out the Multimedia Ads help page to see how you can get started.
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