Those who advertise on Microsoft adCenter might have noticed that Microsoft changed its name to Bing Ads under Yahoo! Bing Network. Yesterday, advertisers received a newsletter from The Bing Support Team with the announcement in name change and no additional explanations. No significant changes have been made and advertisers don’t need to take any actions to upgrade to Bing Ads.
The first change many might notice is a new home screen when you log in or sign up to advertise on Microsoft. The new Bing Ads home page resembles the main page of Bing search and welcomes new advertisers with information and tips on how it works, how to expand advertising reach, cost and payment, and success stories.
The second and I believe the biggest change Microsoft has made and is the ability to transfer existing campaigns from Google AdWords and push them live on Bing. The same function exists on Microsoft adCenter Editor, now Bing Ads Editor, but only experienced PPC marketers knew about this function. For those who are new to Bing Ads, I recommend using the new “Import from Google AdWords” tool because it saves a lot of time and advertisers don’t need to build their campaigns again. When you import your Google AdWords campaigns to the Bing Ads network, make sure to double-check your settings, match types, bids and negatives. In the past I have noticed that some settings could be missed, especially when it comes to geo-targeting settings such as restrictions, custom shapes, radiuses, and zip codes.
Why the Name Change to Bing Ads?
I can assume that Microsoft changed their name because the company wasn’t able to push the name adCenter to the same level as Google’s term AdWords. As a Pay-Per-Click Strategist at WordStream I work with many clients and noticed that some of them have problems understanding what “adCenter” is. At one point I stopped using the term AdCenter, unless I was talking with other PPC experts, and used only terms such as “your ads on Bing,” “Bing Advertising,” “Bing Network,” “Yahoo and Bing” etc. Moreover, from my experience talking to new customers, it was easier to sell or upgrade a client by asking if they want to advertise on Bing rather than asking them about adCenter.
Microsoft made a sensation back in 2009 when they replaced their dying search engine MSN with Bing. Now Microsoft is trying to bring the power of the name Bing to their ad network. The name switch won’t move existing advertisers but it might attract small business owners who are new to PPC.
This is a guest post by Sergey Rusak, PPC Marketing Strategist at WordStream.
This post originated on the WordStream Blog. WordStream provides keyword tools for pay-per click (PPC) and search engine optimization (SEO) aiding in everything from keyword discovery to keyword grouping and organization.