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The Paid Search Podcast | A Weekly Podcast About Google Ads and Online Marketing
Should You Try Microsoft Ads? (Episode 486)
00:28:33
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- [00:00]
A
Foreign hello and welcome to the Paid Search podcast. My name is Chris and today we're going to talk about Google Ads. In fact, we're going to go a little beyond that. We're going to talk about Google Ads and Microsoft ads. Relationship to Google Ads, should you be running ads on Microsoft? Is it something you should consider? Should you ignore it? Maybe you've been doing it? Should you pay more attention to it? What's the relationship and how valuable is it and what's the differences? So we're going to cover all of those things. I have my friend Joey Bidner who is going to give a great discussion about that. So stay tuned. I also have a question from Joe who sent in his question to the podcast. I'm gonna address that and we're gonna jump in right here at the top of the show with the question. Joe writes in and says, hey Chris, is it a good idea to set up a campaign for each device type? We are getting a lot better results from computer traffic and we want more volume. By the way, just left a five star review of your podcast. Keep up the good work. Well, thank you Joe. And for those of you that do listen on the podcast, I appreciate if you would take a moment, leave a review on whatever platform you are listening on. It does help. We have many more reviews than other Google Ads podcasts out there. I think because I don't, you know, I'm, I'm not selling services, you know, I'm giving you a ton of information for free. So if you appreciate that, leave a review. You don't know how much it helps because it really brings in more people, makes us more visible on the podcast networks. So thank you for that. All right, onto Joe's question. So Joe, the answer to your question is probably not okay and I'm going to explain why I suggest you don't want to do that. Alright, so number one, most Google Ads campaigns that are running today are likely using automated bidding of some kind. Joe didn't say, but let's assume that he is using Maximize Conversions or Target CPA or something like that. Okay, so I base this assumption on the fact that, you know, most of the time I see people using these and a minority of people still use manual bidding and even those that, that do use manual bidding bidding, the goal is to possibly move it into an automated bidding situation. So most of the time the end result becomes automated bidding. So, so let's talk in light of that. And because of that I find that it's a detriment to your account if you segment and split out your campaigns into smaller campaigns for no discernible reason. You know, just because you're like, ah, there's this, this group of people and then there's this group of people. These are different people, and so we should have them in different campaigns. That makes sense. If it was 15 years ago in Google Ads, that does not make sense now with automated bidding, it really relies on higher volume input, higher signaling data based on conversions, and that is split out that, that is limited if you were to create three different campaigns instead of just one campaign. So for most people, unless you're working at a highly advanced type of Google Ads management level, I would suggest keeping it in one campaign. Because the algorithms that run today with maximized conversions, target cpa, target roas, all of that stuff, it runs better when it has a higher volume of conversions to work with, as opposed to taking a campaign that gets 30 conversions a month and splitting it into three campaigns. And now each campaign gets maybe two in one of them, 15 in another one, and whatever math says the next one is right. So the problem is that the one with two conversions is going to struggle to know where the success lies. It's not going to know how many successes it's getting as much as the one that's getting 15 conversions a month. The maximized conversion is going to be able to see patterns and signals and get positive feedback in a much higher level than the campaign that's just getting two conversions. So most of the time you don't want to split it. If you want to try and emphasize certain segments of your Google Ads campaign that is successful, I would suggest trying other methods of pushing Google in that direction. For example, if you're using Target cpa, you could try and mimic searches that seem to be more evident from computer users, maybe trying to avoid real short, brief searches that might be coming from mobile devices. I mean, everything's going to be different in every account. So I don't know what that's going to look for you, but you can try and push that and shape that in different ways. It might mean that, you know, perhaps you show ads during more business hours of the day when mobile phones may not be as commonly used during business hours. And maybe people are at their computer more often at work and they're going to be more likely to use their computer for the search. Right. These are just random ideas, but these are the kind of things that I think would make more sense rather than sacrificing the, the algorithm, the automation that works well when it has feedback Right. Feedback is the important part of the automated system and you grind that to a halt when you artificially segment it and cut it into pieces. So. All right, well, thanks for your question. And if you would like to send in a question, you can do so by going to paid searchpodcast.com my email is on that website. You can get me there and send in your questions. Happy to answer them. Like what we're talking about today, a lot of people wonder about Microsoft Ads. And I have Joey Bidner who is a very smart guy. He's going to discuss Microsoft Ads advantages, where it might hold a place in your strategy and where it might not hold a place and how you can differentiate between the two. And we're going to jump over to Joey in just a second right after I tell you about opteo.com PSP if you're unaware of the best Google Ads management software out there, you're in for a treat because you get a special deal right here. You get a 28 day free trial to try optio.com that is a special URL you go to to get access to their keyword tools, their negative keyword tools, their ad copywriting system, their reporting system, their bidding optimization tools. It is a toolbox for those that are serious enough to listen to some nerd talk about Google Ads for 30 minutes. Right. If you're listening to the sound of my voice, you're in that category. You're the kind of person that is going to dig in and value the information you get from Optio because Google Ads matters to your business, your job, your career. It's important to you enough to listen to this podcast. So I guarantee Opteo will be important enough for you to try out, certainly when it costs nothing. 28 day free trial@optio.com PSP use the chat box on their website, let them know you heard about it here and they'll give you that special 28 day free offer. All right, without further ado, we have Joey Bu coming in here. Joey, what is up today?
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B
Hey, what's up, Chris? So today I want to talk about Microsoft Ads. Microsoft has sort of been my secret sweet love affair from Google Ads as over the last year or so I've just seen a lot of gains and a lot of really profitable use of Microsoft Ads alongside my Google Ads for certain accounts when the time is right. So today I want to talk about when I like to introduce Microsoft Ads into my strategy. We're also going to talk about a few key points on how to manage Microsoft Ads effectively. And some trap doors to avoid when launching your first Microsoft Ads account. So the big question is when to use Microsoft Ads? Because I still see Google as the king, it is still the dominant force in the search land. But we want to see Microsoft Ads as an effective spillover. Once you've reached the point of diminishing returns in Google Ads. Microsoft Ads is a really great place to spend a little bit of money and get great results from it. So what I mean by point of diminishing returns, there's a point in every account where as you start to increase your spend, you reach a bit of a ceiling on your profitability. Because as you start to spend more, traffic becomes more and more expensive. And depending on where your floor and ceiling are for your profitability, there sometimes comes a point when you can't profitably spend more within Google. You know, your CPCs keep increasing, your conversion rates aren't increasing, there is a ceiling to it. And that's when I like to suggest Microsoft Ads if I have an account that is hungry to spend more. And what we'll typically do is start small, right? We will spend a small amount of the budget in Google Ads. This is not something where we're just, you know, copying over the same strategy or the same budget. It's kind of like I'll often launch it like almost like a 5 to 1 budget split. So it's meant to be this strategy where you're investing a little bit over here to see how profitable you can make this little ecosystem. So I'm going to get more into the strategy of how we use the dollars a bit later. But I wanted to first just mention this, this idea of using Microsoft as that spillover when you have reached your point of diminishing returns in Google Ads. And nice thing is when you first start using Microsoft ads is it's, it's more or less a big copy paste of Google. It's a very easy adoption rate because the navigation's more or less the same, all the language is the same, they use most of the same principles. So it's a pretty easy thing to, to jump into as a Google Ads practitioner to Microsoft Ads because they know that most people managing ads in microso are coming from the landscape of Google. So they've made that platform adoption pretty easy. So other than that, another time I like to use Microsoft Ads is when I am in a really expensive industry in Google Ads. You know, some industries have 50, 60, 70, $80 CPCs and depending on the budget, Google Ads sometimes might not be viable. Now in Those cases, like for example, lawyers, where the CPCs are really expensive. I will still go to Google first though, right? I will still go to Google first, but if you have a situation where you've tried Google, you just don't have the budget to deal with those expensive CPCs. You can only afford one or two clicks a day. Trying Microsoft ads can go a long way because typically the CPCs are lower. Another reason I really like Microsoft ads is professional targeting and exposure. So by professional targeting I mean a lot of people don't know this, but LinkedIn is owned by Microsoft. And if you've ever advertised in LinkedIn, you know that it has very powerful audiences for professional industries. You know, LinkedIn knows what company you work for, what industry you work in, what role in the industry you work in. And in LinkedIn you can target all those things and in Microsoft Ads you can do bid adjustments and all those things. So you can, you can narrow into specific niches and bid and do bid adjustments on the role of somebody within an industry or even the company they work at. Now I will say though, as sweet as this does sound, that you can do bid adjustments. Microsoft ads hasn't quite figured out how to display the data well. So I still struggle to use this function because it's not as clean cut as Google is at displaying the performance of the audiences that you bid on. So I do want to put that as a bit of a caveat. But I love that we still have this exposure in there and Microsoft is evolving a lot and I assume that this is going to be an area they're going to continue developing. So it just gets me quite excited that they have those in there. And when I say professional exposure, what I also mean is the main reason people use Bing, where that's where our Microsoft ads are placed. One of the main reasons they use Bing is because it is the default browser on PCs. Right? And in a lot of professional industries the work computers are PCs, they're not Macs. And because it's somebody's work computer, they'll often not switch to the Chrome browser. And because of that you get a lot of people at work using Bing. So this gives you a lot of that professional industry exposure. Because a lot of the times when I recommend Microsoft ads, clients say, oh well, who the heck uses Microsoft ads? We're in a Google world. A lot of people don't even realize they're using Bing because they haven't switched the default browser. So you get great professional targeting and great professional exposure. And one of the last reasons why I want to mention why Microsoft Ads is worthwhile to diversify your ads and or at least to get used to, is because as Google Ads managers, we need to get used to a little bit of diversification because I think it's going to be necessary in the future. You know, Google has been dominant for the last 15, 20 years, but just because it's been like that doesn't mean it's going to remain like that. We are at a big flux in the industry with ChatGPT with just AI search in general. And I think we need to get used to some other players coming in the game because these AI search engines are not going anywhere and they're not going to be free forever. And by not being free, I mean they're going to have ads in them. And that actually brings me to my next point. I think this is just a personal take, But I think ChatGPT ads are going to be first introduced through Microsoft Ads because Microsoft has part ownership in OpenAI. And when we think about, you know, when it comes time for ChatGPT to roll out ads, it just makes sense for them to partner with Microsoft. Right? So I personally think that in the future there is going to be a rollout of Microsoft ad placement in ChatGPT. But again, that's just speculation. And lastly, I want to say one more thing about Microsoft on why it's an interesting play in your strategy is they actually have really good support. Google support has slipped by the wayside over the last few years. You know, 10 years ago it was great. Now Google support is dreadful. Support chats rarely go anywhere and we get bombarded by obnoxious Google reps. Microsoft Ads doesn't have this problem. They actually have really good support. Every time I've hopped on a support chat, I am blown away at the the level of interest of the person I'm talking to. Actually, they actually seem like they really care and just the success rate of it. Microsoft Ad support is really good. And they don't, from what I can see so far, they don't have obnoxious Google reps that are calling you nonstop trying to get you to adopt their strategies, AKA like salespeople. They just leave you alone, let you do your thing, but they're there when you need it. And along the lines of this quest for good support, they actually have this thing called Copilot, which is basically like Microsoft's version of their like AI chat engine. But Copilot is embedded into Microsoft Ads. So you actually have this AI chat engine that Again, is really good. So the Google Ads AI chat engine is obnoxious because again, it's trying to like, steer your strategy, whereas the Microsoft Ads copilot is there to just be your assistant for. For things like, for example, if I can't find where a certain button is or a certain feature is, or how to read a certain thing in the platform, I can ask Copilot, kind of like I would if I were going to support chat. And I'm honestly blown away often by the results of the copilot. Again, it's not pushy trying to get you to adopt strategies, it's just there to help you navigate the platform. So I want to give a few tips on how to get started in Microsoft Ads. So one of the interesting things is that they again, know that most of us are coming from Google Ads. So they have this pretty sweet import function where you can import your campaigns in their entirety over to Microsoft Ads. It's pretty sweet, but with this comes a massive disclaimer. Most of the time when I inherit an account that has Microsoft Ads, they do this import, but then by default the import is set to this auto sync option. Which sounds sweet at the beginning, right? Auto sync, meaning when you make a change in Google, it changes in Microsoft Ads. And this is the first massive mistake in managing Microsoft Ads. Do not copy paste your strategy from Google Ads to Microsoft Ads. They are two completely different networks that should be approached with different strategies. And even with that, just because a certain thing works in Google Ads, a certain bid or a bid strategy, or just because it works in Google Ads does not mean that it will work the same way in Microsoft. They need to be managed completely separately. They're their own auction system. So in none of my accounts am I using that sync function. I will simply use the import function to import a specific campaign that I want to more or less alleviate the heavy lifting of starting it from scratch. That's all I will use it for. And there's a lot of settings that you really need to go through to make sure that it is copying the right stuff over and not auto syncing. So that's my first really big suggestion. Next is how do we approach Microsoft Ads in terms of its strategy alongside Google? Now, what I will typically do with Microsoft is again, not copy my entire strategy over. I will not just do every campaign that I have in Google. In Microsoft, I will strategically pick the few campaigns that are the most profitable. You want to take your big easy wins and put them over into Microsoft. And usually what I will do Is at first I will launch it as a bit of a volume play. I'm going for those cheaper CPCs, high quality search intent at the bottom of the funnel to see how much more I can squeeze out of what I know works and seeing if I can get it for a bit cheaper. That's usually my play. So if it's, if it's an E Comm account, I'll just do like standard shopping and a little bit of search to supplement it. Or if it's lead gen, obviously just standard search. I'm not using currently Microsoft ads for pmax or any of those larger, more AI driven campaigns. I'm sticking to the brass tacks of just standard search and shopping and keeping those campaigns very simple and streamlined. I'll often launch them in manual CPC and see where the floor of that CPC is and then slowly ramp things up and change them the same way I would in Google Ads, right? Switching to automated bidding when it makes sense. But I like starting with manual to really see what the floor of those CPCs are and see if I can get the same volume and level of search intent that I'm used to in Google Ads. And this simplicity is kind of the beauty of using Microsoft ads. You don't need to understand every corner of the platform to make it work. Usually when we think of success in Google Ads we think okay, really want to learn every button, every campaign type and, and form this complex strategy with layering. And my approach to Microsoft is much simpler. I will let Google do that heavy lifting again. Once I reach a point of missing returns, I go over to Microsoft ads and I keep it simple. I keep it very simple. Just focus on bottom of the funnel, cheap CPCs, you know, in most cases like a 5 to 1 budget and let that run and then allow it to grow organically. But you know, I just really wanted to mention you don't need to feel intimidated with Microsoft ads. It does have a lot of complexity like Google and in some cases very different stuff. You know, like I said at the top of the show, it's got different tools like the professional audience targeting, stuff like that. It does have a lot of sweet little pockets, but you don't really need to know all them to get started. Keep it simple, keep it sweet. Now I do need to mention a pretty serious trapdoor. When you launch a Microsoft campaign, it's going to have by default something called the audience network. The audience network is sort of like search partners, but even worse because it's not just search partner search engines, it's Your ads can actually show up on all kinds of URLs, and we need to exclude those. So first I want to tell you about how to identify the wasted spend you're seeing in the what they call the audience network. If you're at your campaign view and you scroll down to the bottom, you'll see the summaries of everything. You know, you'll see your shopping campaigns, your search campaigns. There's going to be a line item for audience. I think audience network is what they call it, or audience something. And that will show you how much you spent in this audience network and how many conversions you got and all that stuff. And in a lot of cases, it spends lot and gets nothing. And to turn this off is actually quite buried. We cannot turn it off at the campaign level. We need to turn it off at the ad group level. So what you need to do is go to Ad Group Settings and then you'll see a little area for ad distribution that you can drop down. And it'll give you two options. And you want to select Microsoft sites and select Traffic. That's limiting the searches to the Microsoft search engine. The other option, I forget what it's called on the top of my head. It's the audience network. It's everything else. And we need to toggle this off. Otherwise your ads are going to show up on all kinds of weird URLs. Then sometimes you need to take one step further and actually add URL exclusions so you can see through this website URL Publisher report all the URLs that your ads showed up on. So again, what you're going to do to see this is go to just the search bar menu, type in URL, or it's called the Website URL Publisher report. So you just type in any of that into the search bar. You go to this report and what you'll see are all your campaigns, all the clicks that apply to them, but then a line item for every click, more or less. And there's a column for website URL. And this is where you can see the URLs your stuff showed up for. And sometimes we need to export this and apply this URL exclusion list to a website URL exclusion list. So you need to go through that and more or less remove the ones that say Bing MSN or I think it's just called like Microsoft sites. Those are the good ones. Everything else is junk. So you export this report and you apply the URL exclusion list by going to Tools, then Content Suitability, and then click on website control list and that's where you upload this list and then you won't show on those URLs anymore. But for the most part, I found that just switching the ad distribution negates this issue. But I have had to do a URL exclusion list before. So before I go, I want to mention one more kind of sweet feature about Microsoft ads and that is max CPCS for smart bidding. So I've spoken in the past about how I like to use max CPCS for Target ROAS and Target CPA bidding. But in Google we need to apply a portfolio bid strategy. It's a bit of a pain. Microsoft ads kind of gets it that we want this control. And when you apply one of these smart bidding options, it just has the option to have a max cpc. And I find that sweet. It just tells us that they're listening to the things we want. And this is something that's ever evolving. I am seeing that Microsoft in general just does a good job of actually listening to its people and applying changes to its platform. It's just a little bit slower than Google at actually innovating and coming up with new stuff. It more or less copies Google and then tweaks it. So I really like Microsoft ads for that, but that's it for me. I hope this helped open up your mind to the option of using Microsoft ads. And again, I want to say be ready for a bit of diversification. You know, I'm never going to social advertising. I don't think we need to diversify to Facebook or Meta. Like I like staying in search. But with within the realm of search, this is where we need to diversify a little bit because there's more players coming into the game and I find Microsoft is a great place to lean into to get into that mindset and practice learning something new. All right, I'll pass it back to you, Chris. See you next time.
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A
All right, thank you, Joey. I appreciate it. And for those of you who would like to reach out to Joey, you can find him joeybidner.com you can find me chrishaefer.com otherwise, I'll be right here next week on the paid search podcast, as I am every week. Be sure and subscribe, leave a positive comment and a 5 star review. I really appreciate that. It helps a lot. Otherwise, I'll catch you guys here next week.