With its ability to reach both Yahoo and Bing users, Bing Ads has become a key competitor of Google AdWords. Using the pay-per-click (PPC) platform, business owners and marketers can create targeted ads that appear in the search results as well as third-party sites. But if you plan on using Bing Ads to promote your business, you should take note of a recent change. As explained on the official Bing Ads blog, the platform will no longer display text ads in the sidebar.
As of March 26, 2018, any text ads purchased through Bing Ads will no longer display in the sidebar. Previously, Bing Ads displayed text ads at the top of the organic search results, bottom of the search results and the right-hand sidebar. Microsoft has since decided to remove the sidebar ads, however. Instead, text ads will only appear at the top and bottom of the search results. For the latter, Bing Ads is increasing the number of text ads it displays here from three to four.
While text ads have been removed from the sidebar, Bing will continue to display Product Ads in the sidebar. These ads consist of more than just text. Like Google’s Product Shopping ads, Bing’s Product Ads contain the product name, price, vendor’s website and other relevant information, allowing for a richer format that often yields higher click-through rates (CTRs) and conversion rates.
So, why did Bing remove text ads from the sidebar? On its blog, Bing explained that internal tests showed that removing text ads from the sidebar resulted in a higher volume of clicks for advertisers. Of course, this is something that Google has been doing for a while. In 2016, Google removed all text ads from its sidebar as well.
As a business owner, hearing news of Bing’s decision to remove text ads from the sidebar may be discouraging. After all, this has been prime digital real estate for countless business owners, many of whom prefer the modest cost of these listing as opposed to the more expensive top-ranking ad slots. But there are ways to continue advertising your business on Bing Ads, even with this latest change.
When using Bing Ads to promote your business, focus on metrics that matter, including CTR, conversion rate, cost per click (CPC), and more importantly, earnings per click (EPC). If you’re able to achieve a higher EPC than CPC, you have a profitable campaign and should continue advertising.
