Bing Says HNY Retailers with new Intent Ads, Ideal for Ecommerce
There is something we here at the Marketing Depot still find quite exciting about a new digital advertising product launch. It's like that new Christmas toy you can't wait to play with, but in this case Bing are rather teasingly leaving it wrapped until the new year.
Nonetheless, with the recent announcement form Bing that it was closing its equivalent of Google Adwords' Display Network, the new format "Intent Ads" they have announced today appear to be an interesting play at mirroring some of Adwords Display's more powerful big data-based audience monitoring capabilities.
Before you ask yourself "why is he nattering away about some obscure ads platform aping the only one I need to worry about", it is worth returning the mantra that regular readers will already be discerning issuing from the Depot ...
"If you are finding success on Adwords, particularly with an older demographic, your next highest ROI, easiest advertising spend is almost certainly Bing advertising."
-Rattling Tram Mantra
You won't find the same VOLUME on Bing that you do on Adwords, but Bing have a LOT of data that shows you can expect better quality, and often cheaper traffic with Bing Ads versus Adwords.
Bing Intent Ads Open Beta Phase for Australia
The Open Beta phase of the new platform starts for Australian users on 16 January, 2018. The new ads will show own MSN websites and Microsoft Outlook in Australia, U.S., and the UK, depending on campaign targeting settings.
During the first 30 days of this open beta, there will be no charge for any Bing Intent Ads clicks that occur in Australia. However, advertisers will be charged during the first 30-day period for any Bing Intent Ad clicks on campaigns that target the U.S. and/or the UK. After the first 30 days, advertisers will be charged on a cost-per-click basis for all Bing Intent Ads campaigns.
Bing say they are expecting average click volume for Intent Ads during the open beta phase to be less than 1% of total click volume, although this will vary campaign to campaign.
What Are Bing Intent Ads?
Bing Intent Ads are like a hybrid of search and display advertising. An Intent Ad is a native ad placement on the above mentioned networks, overlaid with intent signals from search. The networks themselves obviously don't have huge reach compared to Adwords, hence the 1% traffic estimate Bing are providing.
Bing Intent Ads optimally integrate search ads naturally into page content using Bing Ads data-based user intent modelling. Bing Intent Ads are matched to user intent through search history, content signals and web activity to deliver engaging ad experiences across Microsoft’s premium publishers.
It appears, though this remains to be clarified, that the ads will be dynamically generated - meaning Bing will generate the actual advert itself, based on the directions you give it. Bing has stated the ads will rely on "Image Extensions" (see below) to source images for the creative.
What Are the Main Benefits of Bing Intent Ads?
Highly Convertible Traffic: This of course, readers is somewhat hypothesis - we know nothing of the quality of Bing's modelling here, and they have been fairly vague on the signal factors they are using, but the intent is obviously to mimic Adwords' In-Market audiences, which many display advertisers know can be a sneaky and cost-effective source of purchase-ready traffic in certain niches.
If you've got the type of product for which users undertake an extensive RESEARCH phase, In-Market/intent advertising will be a good option for you. These people will usually have been searching around lots of websites. We know Adwords has a reasonably good concept of when these types of buyers are showing purchase intent for a particular product.
Channel Expansion: Reach beyond the search box to millions of monthly unique users across MSN and Outlook around the world
Easy to use: The Bing Ads interface has been designed to be as familiar as possible to those already used to Adwords.
How Do I Get Started?
If you already have a Bing Ads account, any search campaigns will be automatically opted in to the pilot on 16 January 2018.
To get the most out of Intent Ads, Bing recommend using Image Extensions. You can define your Bing Intent Ads imagery by associating Image Extensions to your campaigns and ad groups ahead of the launch date.
We'll be sure to post back in January with some how-to's once we've had the opportunity to test the system.
If you'd like any assistance, guidance or strategy with Bing or your digital ads more, CONTACT US, here or page right to pick our brains. We'll usually get back to you same business day.
Here's an article Bing have posted previously for UK customers of the service, which gives you some idea what the ads look like.
Who isn't eligible?
If your product is in the gambling, adult, pharmaceutical or personals (dating) - you'll be used to this by now - you are unfortunately ineligible for Intent Ads, and will not be opted in to the beta phase.
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