4 Spring Cleaning Tips to Boost Your Return on Investment in Bing Ads

Martha Stewart once wrote, “There are few rites of Spring more satisfying than the annual clean. For many people, however, the pleasure comes only after the work is finished.” The same may be true for your Bing Ads account. Fortunately, a little spring cleaning can go a long way — and additional conversions, improved return on investment, and lower costs are definitely pleasing.

Here’s a look at how to clean up your Bing Ads account, just like Martha would:

1. KEEP YOUR ADS DISPLAYING: BIDS, BUDGETS + QUALITY

• Import campaigns: Do you have all products and services you offer covered? If not, create new campaigns or ad groups, or automatically import your Google campaigns into Bing Ads by simply entering your account log in.

• Refine budgets: On the Campaigns page, all campaigns should have a delivery status of “eligible.” If a campaign runs out of budget, your ads won’t be shown. Try the daily-standard budget, so your budget is smoothed out across each day. If you anticipate seasonal spikes (e.g., Mother’s Day), adjust your budget ahead of time. You can also use budget suggestions to prevent missed opportunities and impressions.

• Bid competitively: Keywords with a bid below $0.30 barely make it into the auction, meaning your ads get less exposure. Using bid suggestions or accessing real bid data in Bing Ads Intelligence can help you set more competitive bids.

• Bid on all match types: Exact match bids typically result in higher click-through rates (CTR) and lower costs per click (CPC). Your exact match bid should be slightly higher than those on phrase and broad.

• Improve Quality Scores: If your keywords have low Quality Scores, your ads are less likely to display. Improving your score can be as easy as adding the low-scoring keyword to your landing page.

2. SHOW YOUR ADS TO THE RIGHT PEOPLE: KEYWORDS + TARGETING

• Check keyword lists: Research relevant new keywords with Bing Ads Intelligence or use keyword suggestions on the Opportunities tab. You can also remove any keywords that aren’t generating any impressions.

• Refine broad match keywords: Use broad match modifier to designate what terms must be present in a searcher’s query for your ad to appear.

• Refine your traffic: Consider adding or refining negative keywords, which eliminate irrelevant traffic.

• Tailor your ads to specific searchers: Using dynamic text can increase relevancy, so try it out in at least one ad.

• Target the right customers: Review your targeting options. Are you targeting the locations, days, time of week, ages, genders and other factors that best describe your ideal customer?

• Be device-specific: Search, content and mobile ads have different success metrics. If you bid on content match types or have a dedicated mobile strategy in place, create different campaigns for each.

3. GET CLICKS: AD EXTENSIONS + COPY

• Add more links: Sitelink extensions lets you add additional links to your website to your ads, so searchers can access the pages that interest them most — and your ad takes up more space on the search results page. You can enter up to 10 Sitelink extensions for each campaign, and up to six may be displayed.

• Help local searchers find you: Location extensions are a must-have if you have a physical store because it lets you show both your address and phone number in your ad. If you have multiple business locations, Bing Ads will display the address and phone number for the location closest to the searcher.

• Test ad copy: Weed out ads that have the lowest click-through rate, and revamp their copy, then use ad rotation settings to see how the performance of the rewritten ads compares with the old. Don’t forget to also adjust your copy for seasonal opportunities.

4. TRACK YOUR SUCCESS: REPORTING + CONVERSION TRACKING

• Get smart about reporting: Reports are the easiest way to track your success, so consider prioritizing which reports you use and running them on a regular basis.

• Find out what searches cause your ad to display: Check the search query performance report. If you find queries that are barely relevant to your business, add those terms to your negative keyword list.

• Track success metrics: The next step beyond basic reporting is enabling conversion tracking to see which keywords inspire your customers to take desired actions, like making a purchase or signing up for a mailing list.

If you’re using at least some of the tips above, your account should be in good shape for spring. If you’re still not sure where to start, let our search experts at searchaz@microsoft.com help you. You can also access this simple checklist we’ve created to mark off what house-cleaning items you’ve completed — one satisfying check at a time.

Thanks!

Peter