Bing Ads in 2026: How Microsoft Advertising Works, What It Costs and When It Pays Off

Bing Ads is still how most marketers search for it, even though Microsoft renamed the platform Microsoft Advertising in 2019. Its scale is smaller than Google's, and that is exactly why it deserves a look: in September 2026, StatCounter measured Bing at 14.62% of worldwide desktop searches, against 5.29% across all devices. A desktop audience is often an audience at work, with a company card and a buying decision to make. This guide explains how the platform works, where your ads appear, how to import your Google campaigns, what it costs compared with Google, and when the organic side of Bing matters as much as the paid side.

What is Microsoft Advertising, formerly Bing Ads?

Microsoft Advertising is Microsoft's advertising platform. It sells search ads (text ads on results pages), shopping ads for retailers, and audience ads displayed across the Microsoft network. The name changed, the logic did not: you choose keywords, write ads, set a budget and a bid, and pay when someone clicks.

• Search ads: text ads triggered by keywords on Bing and partner search engines.
• Shopping campaigns: product ads fed by a product catalog, for e-commerce sites.
• Audience ads: visual ads shown on Microsoft properties such as MSN, Outlook.com and the Edge browser, targeted by audience.
• Performance Max: a campaign type that spreads one budget across several placements and formats, including Copilot.

If you already run campaigns on Google, the vocabulary will feel familiar: campaigns, ad groups, match types, negative keywords, extensions (called assets) and conversion tracking all exist with the same meaning. Our glossary entry on pay-per-click advertising covers these basics.

Where do Microsoft Advertising ads appear?

The network goes well beyond bing.com. This is the main reason the platform reaches people Google Ads does not, even if the overall volume is smaller.

Copilot deserves attention. Microsoft shows ads alongside Copilot answers and, in 2025, announced new conversational formats, as Search Engine Land reported. For advertisers, it is one of the few ways to buy visibility inside an AI answer today. Our page on how Microsoft Copilot chooses its sources explains the organic side.

How does a Microsoft Advertising campaign work?

The mechanics match those of every search auction. Each time a search matches one of your keywords, the system runs an auction. Your position and your price depend on your bid, the expected click rate, the relevance of the ad and the quality of the landing page.

1. Choose a goal and a campaign type: search, shopping, audience or Performance Max.
2. Pick keywords and match types: broad, phrase or exact, plus negative keywords to filter out irrelevant searches.
3. Write ads: responsive search ads with several headlines and descriptions that the system combines.
4. Set targeting: locations, languages, schedule, devices and, for B2B, LinkedIn profile criteria.
5. Track conversions: install the UET tag (Microsoft's tracking tag) to measure leads and sales and let automated bidding learn.

One practical difference: Microsoft Advertising gives you more manual control in some areas, such as bid adjustments by device and audience, which advertisers who prefer to steer their campaigns appreciate.

How do you import your Google Ads campaigns?

The fastest way to start is the Google Import feature. According to Microsoft's documentation, you connect your Google Ads account, choose the campaigns, pick what to bring over and can schedule the import to repeat automatically.

1. Sign in to Microsoft Advertising and open the import tool.
2. Connect your Google Ads account (or a manager account).
3. Select the campaigns to import and the elements to include (keywords, ads, assets, budgets).
4. Review the warnings: some settings are skipped or adjusted during the import.
5. Schedule a daily, weekly or monthly sync if you want both platforms to stay aligned.

After the import, check three things before turning the campaigns on: budgets (often too high for a smaller network), bids (start lower and adjust), and conversion tracking (the UET tag replaces the Google tag).

Bing Ads vs Google Ads: which costs less?

The cost per click is often lower on Microsoft Advertising because fewer advertisers compete on the same keywords. This is a tendency that depends on your sector and your country, so verify it with your own test. For reference, our guide to Google Ads cost details how prices form on the larger platform.

The right way to compare is cost per conversion. A cheaper click that never converts costs more than an expensive click that turns into a customer. Use a return on ad spend calculator to compare both platforms on revenue, using your own figures.

When is Microsoft Advertising worth it?

The platform is a complement to Google Ads in almost every case. It earns its budget in a few clear situations:

• B2B offers: buyers search from work computers, where Bing is the default in Windows and Edge.
• High Google costs: when your clicks on Google are expensive, the same keywords on Microsoft often cost less.
• Older or desktop audiences: finance, insurance, travel, health and professional services.
• Campaigns that already work on Google: an import gives you a quick test with little setup.
• Brands that want presence in Copilot: paid placement in AI answers is still rare elsewhere.

It is less useful for very young audiences, mobile-first offers and very local businesses with small budgets, where the volume may be too thin to learn anything in a reasonable time.

What is the organic counterpart of Bing Ads?

Paying for clicks on Bing stops the moment your budget stops. The organic side keeps working. Bing has its own free console, Bing Webmaster Tools, to submit your sitemap, see your searches and fix indexing problems: our Bing Webmaster Tools guide walks through the setup and IndexNow.

The organic index also matters for AI. Copilot builds its answers on the Bing index, and several assistants rely on web search results to ground what they say. A page that Bing indexes well has more chances to be cited. In practice, the best balance is often paid ads for immediate demand and SEO plus GEO content for lasting visibility on Google, Bing and in AI answers.

Conclusion

Bing Ads, now Microsoft Advertising, is a smaller but often cheaper search network, strong on desktop and in B2B, with ad placements in Copilot and LinkedIn targeting that Google cannot match. Import your Google campaigns, start with a modest budget, compare cost per conversion after a few weeks, and keep what pays. For the organic side, Sorank, our SEO and GEO software in autopilot, finds your keywords, writes and publishes optimized articles and tracks how ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini mention you: see how SEO automation with Sorank works and test it with a 3-day free trial.