For most GTA businesses already on Google Ads, Microsoft Advertising is worth a controlled test because it reaches a smaller but often cheaper and higher-intent audience that Google alone misses.
Is Bing Ads worth running alongside Google?
For most businesses already spending on Google Ads, yes — running Microsoft Advertising alongside it is worth a controlled test, because the clicks are often cheaper and the audience is one Google does not fully reach. It is an addition to your Google budget, not a substitute for it.
Bing Ads has been called Microsoft Advertising since 2019, and it is the same idea as Google Ads: you bid on keywords, your ads appear against searches, and you pay when someone clicks. The important difference is reach. Google handles the overwhelming majority of searches in Canada, so Microsoft Advertising will never send you the same volume. That single fact is why the question is worth asking carefully rather than answering with a flat yes or no.
The case for running it is that the audience is not simply a smaller copy of Google’s. Microsoft Advertising serves ads across Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, AOL and the broader Microsoft Search Network, and it reaches people through Windows, Microsoft Edge and Office. That footprint skews toward desktop users, corporate networks and older, higher-income searchers — a slice of the market some businesses reach poorly on Google.
The case against running it is that for a business with a tight budget and limited hands, another platform to build, monitor and report on can dilute focus. If your Google account is already under-optimised, spreading thinner rarely helps. The right sequence is to get Google working first, then test Bing as incremental reach.
At Blupixel we treat Microsoft Advertising as a candidate channel rather than a default. Because we already run and report on paid search for GTA clients, adding a small, separately measured Bing test tells us within a few weeks whether the traffic converts at a cost that works — and if it does not, we stop, which is cheaper than debating it in the abstract.
Who actually uses Bing in Canada?
Microsoft Advertising’s audience skews toward desktop, Windows and Edge users, and tends to be older and higher-income than the average Google searcher, because Bing is the default search engine on Windows and in Edge and Office.
The reach comes largely from defaults. Bing is the built-in search engine in Microsoft Edge, in Windows search, and in many corporate environments where IT teams keep the standard configuration. People who never deliberately choose Bing still search through it dozens of times a day, often on work machines during business hours.
That distribution has a knock-on effect on demographics. Because a large share of the audience is searching from desktops and workplaces, it tilts toward professionals, decision-makers and older users who are more likely to be on Windows and less likely to have switched their default. For a business selling to that kind of buyer, the audience mismatch that hurts on some channels can actually work in your favour.
It is also worth knowing that Microsoft Advertising does not only reach Bing users. Search partners including Yahoo and DuckDuckGo carry these ads too, so a portion of your impressions comes from people who never touch Bing directly. Microsoft publishes the makeup of the Microsoft Search Network in its own documentation, and it is worth reading before you assume ‘Bing’ means one website.
The practical takeaway for a Canadian business: do not judge the platform by whether you personally use Bing. Judge it by whether the desktop, professional, older-skewing audience it over-indexes on matches the customer you are trying to reach.
Which industries and audiences make Bing pay off?
Bing tends to pay off for B2B, professional services, healthcare, finance, real estate and higher-consideration purchases aimed at older or corporate buyers, and less so for youth-focused, mobile-first or impulse consumer categories.
The pattern follows the audience. Where your buyer is a professional making a considered decision from a desktop — a company evaluating a supplier, a patient researching a clinic, someone comparing mortgage or insurance options, a buyer looking at property — the Microsoft audience concentration works for you. These are also often higher-value conversions, which means a smaller volume of clicks can still justify the channel.
Where it tends to underperform is the opposite profile: brands targeting younger, mobile-first audiences, impulse or trend-driven retail, and anything that lives on social feeds rather than search. That traffic simply is not as present on the Microsoft network, so you are fishing in a smaller pond for a fish that mostly swims elsewhere.
Geography matters within the GTA too. Volume is thinner than Google everywhere, so a business serving a narrow local area with low search demand may find a Bing campaign starved of impressions. A business with regional or national reach, or a broad professional keyword set, has more room for the numbers to add up.
None of this is a rule you should apply blind. It is a starting hypothesis. The industries above are where we would expect a test to work, but the only proof is your own conversion data — a healthcare client and a boutique retailer in the same city can get opposite results, and the point of a test is to find out which one you are.
| Profile | Worth testing? | Why |
|---|---|---|
| B2B and professional services | Strong candidate | Desktop, corporate, decision-maker audience is over-represented |
| Healthcare, finance, real estate | Strong candidate | Higher-consideration, higher-value conversions; older buyers |
| National or regional reach | Good candidate | Enough volume for numbers to be meaningful |
| Youth-focused or trend retail | Weak candidate | Audience skews away from the target demographic |
| Mobile-first, impulse purchases | Weak candidate | Less mobile volume; intent lives on social, not search |
| Narrow local niche, low demand | Risky | Volume may be too thin to spend or learn from |
Is Bing really cheaper than Google?
Cost-per-click on Microsoft Advertising is frequently lower than Google for the same keywords, mainly because fewer advertisers compete there — but a lower click cost only matters if the clicks convert.
The cheaper-click reputation is real and it comes down to supply and demand. Far fewer advertisers bid on Microsoft Advertising than on Google, so auctions for the same keyword often clear at a lower price. For businesses in expensive verticals — legal, insurance, finance — where a single Google click can be painfully costly, that gap is the whole reason to look at Bing.
But a cheap click is worthless if it does not lead anywhere. What actually matters is cost per conversion and return on ad spend, not cost per click. A lower CPC combined with a lower conversion rate can end up more expensive per customer than Google, which is why headline CPC comparisons are misleading on their own.
We do not quote a fixed price advantage because it varies by industry, keyword and season, and because Microsoft’s own auction changes constantly. Any agency that promises a specific percentage saving before running your campaign is guessing. The honest answer is that Bing is usually cheaper per click and sometimes cheaper per conversion — and only your test tells you which.
This is also why measurement has to be set up before you spend, not after. If conversion tracking is not in place on the Microsoft side, a cheap-looking campaign can quietly waste money while the dashboard shows nothing but clicks.
Can I just import my Google Ads campaigns into Microsoft Advertising?
Yes. Microsoft Advertising has a built-in import tool that pulls your existing Google Ads campaigns, ad groups, keywords and ads across, which makes testing the platform quick and low-effort.
The import feature is the single biggest reason the barrier to testing is low. Rather than rebuilding everything from scratch, you connect your Google account, import your structure, and start from campaigns you have already refined. Microsoft designed it this way deliberately to win over Google advertisers.
The trap is treating the import as finished work. Google and Microsoft are not identical — audience behaviour differs, some Google features have no exact equivalent, and bidding dynamics are different because competition is lower. A straight copy-paste often over-bids or carries settings that made sense on Google and do not on Bing.
So the right use of the import is as a fast starting point, followed by adjustment: reviewing bids for the cheaper auction, trimming keywords that only make sense at Google volume, and rewriting ad copy where the audience justifies a different message. The import saves the setup day, not the optimisation.
In practice this is why the setup cost of a Bing test is small enough that reluctance usually comes down to bandwidth rather than money — someone still has to watch and tune it, which is where an agency or a disciplined in-house owner earns their place.
What goes wrong when businesses add Bing?
The common failures are treating Bing as a Google clone, launching without separate conversion tracking, expecting Google-level volume, and setting it up once then never optimising it.
The first mistake is the copy-paste import left untouched. Because the audience and competition differ, campaigns that were tuned for Google slowly bleed budget on Bing without anyone noticing, since the account often gets a fraction of the attention Google does.
The second is measuring it inside the same bucket as Google. If you cannot see Bing’s conversions and cost separately, you cannot judge it, and it either gets unfairly blamed for Google’s weak spots or unfairly credited for them. Every channel deserves its own scoreboard.
The third is a volume expectation problem. A business used to Google’s traffic sees a trickle from Bing, panics, and switches it off before the data is meaningful. Small volume is not the same as bad performance — the right test runs long enough and with enough budget to reach a real conclusion.
The fourth is neglect. A channel nobody looks at drifts. Search terms need reviewing, negatives need adding, bids need adjusting to the cheaper auction. We handle this through the same transparent, regular reporting we run on the rest of a client’s paid search, so Bing is not the campaign that quietly stops being managed.
How do I decide if it’s worth testing for my business?
Run a fixed-budget test for a set period with its own conversion tracking, judge it on cost per conversion rather than clicks, and keep it only if the numbers beat or complement your Google results.
Start by checking your Google account is healthy first. If Google is under-optimised, fix that before adding a second platform — a new channel does not rescue a badly-run one, it just spreads the same problems wider.
Then decide on a test budget you can lose without pain and a window long enough to gather data — enough clicks to see whether they convert, not one week of impatience. Set up conversion tracking on the Microsoft side before a dollar is spent, and keep the reporting separate from Google so the comparison is clean.
Judge the result on cost per conversion and return on ad spend, and against a specific question: is Bing bringing conversions Google was not, at a cost that works? If yes, scale it. If it is only duplicating Google conversions at a higher cost, drop it without regret — a clean ‘no’ is a good outcome for a test.
This is the process we run for GTA clients, and it starts with the free audit and consultation we offer: we look at your current Google performance and your audience before recommending whether Bing is even worth your time. Sometimes the honest recommendation is not to bother, and saying so is part of the point.
1Confirm Google is healthyFix the primary channel before adding a second2Import and adjustBring Google campaigns across, then re-tune for Bing3Set tracking and budgetSeparate conversion tracking, a budget you can lose4Run a fixed windowLong enough for meaningful data5Judge on cost per conversionNot clicks, not volume6Scale or stopKeep only if it adds converting traffic
What’s the smallest way to try Bing without overcommitting?
Import a subset of your best-performing Google campaigns, cap the budget low, run it for a defined period with conversion tracking on, and review before deciding to expand — you do not have to migrate your whole account to learn something.
You do not need to replicate your entire Google account to test the platform. Pick the campaigns and keywords that already perform best on Google — your clearest intent, your best converters — and import just those. That gives the test its fairest possible shot and limits the surface area you have to manage.
Cap the daily budget low enough that a poor result is a rounding error, not a crisis. The goal at this stage is information, not scale. If the small test shows promising cost per conversion, you expand deliberately; if it does not, you have learned that cheaply.
Keep the review honest and scheduled. Set a date to look at the numbers rather than deciding by gut feeling week to week. A test with no end date and no criteria is not a test, it is a slow leak.
Because the import makes setup fast and the budget is capped, the real cost of trying is attention rather than money — which is exactly why it makes sense to run it as part of managed paid search rather than as a side project nobody owns.
Common questions
Is Bing Ads the same as Microsoft Advertising?
Yes. Microsoft rebranded Bing Ads as Microsoft Advertising in 2019. It is the same platform, and it now serves ads across Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, AOL and the wider Microsoft Search Network, not only on Bing.
Will Bing send me as much traffic as Google?
No. Google handles the large majority of searches in Canada, so Microsoft Advertising will always be lower volume. That is why it works as an addition to a Google budget rather than a replacement — you run it for incremental, often cheaper reach, not to match Google’s scale.
How much does it cost to test Microsoft Advertising?
There is no fixed minimum we can quote, because it depends on your industry and keywords. Practically, you set a daily budget you are comfortable losing and run it long enough to gather meaningful data. The setup cost is low because you can import your existing Google campaigns.
Does Bing work for local businesses in the GTA?
It can, but volume is the deciding factor. A business serving a very narrow local area with low search demand may not get enough impressions to be worth it, while one with broader regional reach or professional-audience keywords has more room to succeed. A short test with conversion tracking is the only reliable way to know.
Should I run Google and Bing with identical campaigns?
Import them as a starting point, then adjust. The audience skews more toward desktop and professional users on Microsoft, and the auction is less competitive, so bids and sometimes ad copy should be tuned rather than copied verbatim from Google.
Which industries usually do best on Bing?
B2B, professional services, healthcare, finance and real estate tend to perform well because the audience over-indexes on older, higher-income, desktop and corporate users. Youth-focused, mobile-first and impulse retail categories usually do less well there.
How will I know if Bing is actually working?
Judge it on cost per conversion and return on ad spend, tracked separately from Google, not on cost per click or raw traffic. A cheap click that never converts is not a win, and keeping Bing and Google in separate scoreboards is the only way to see which is really pulling its weight.