In this blog post, I am going to show you a recent test I ran using Microsoft Ads.
Most of you will know this as Microsoft Bing Ads.
Before I get to that.
For those of you who don’t know..
Microsoft is a Tier 1 Traffic source.
It doesn’t have as much traffic as Google or Facebook but it still get’s 900 Million searches a day and the traffic tends to convert very well to the right type of offer.
One Thing You Must Understand About Microsofts Users
Microsofts users are unique to just about every other Tier 1 network out there.
If you don’t understand what Tier 1 is, I just mean Traffic Sources like Microsoft, Facebook, Google & The Google GDN (Google Display Network).
Those are the Big 3 and, generally speaking, have the highest volume and highest converting traffic.
Some affiliates might make a case for YouTube ads, but I’ve never personally used it, so I can’t comment on that.
Microsofts users are generally a more mature audience and they are typically less tech savvy.
This is why some verticals (categories) of Affiliate offers flat out won’t work on Microsoft Ads.
More about this later in this blog post.
Think about it..
Microsoft’s Bing Search Engine comes pre-installed on most Windows based computers.
It’s usually the default search engine.
And those who don’t have the “savvy” to change their search engine default to Google, just leave it set to bing.
And so they wind up using Bing and not google and that’s who a large portion of Microsofts users are.
Of course some just flat out dislike Google and use Bing for that reason too.
Microsofts users also tend to be affluent and their searches tend to be ultra specific.
Long tail phrases to target Affiliate products work very well with Microsoft Ads.
I also find that conversion rate tends to be higher than Google Ads.
This isn’t to be confused with sales volume.
Conversion rate and sales volume aren’t the same thing.
My conversion rate tends to be higher with Microsoft Ads but in terms of sales volume, Google win that battle hands down, simply because Google has a TON more traffic.
My Goals With This Test:
1. I wanted to keep it as simple as I possibly could.
It’s known as an MVP.
Which is Minimal Viable Offer.
I tweaked what I usually do, by using a completely different landing page approach.
It was deliberately the bare minimum I had to do to get an affiliate offer up and running.
It involved:
- A NEW campaign
- A NEW Clickbank account
- A Niche I’d never tested before.
- A 2 page site
- One single keyword
- One Affiliate Offer
- No Email Follow up sequence
2. I wanted to see how lenient Microsoft Ads really are (AKA: I wanted to see what they would allow).
Google have policies and they have been notorious in the past for slapping accounts.
In some cases, without warning.
This by itself, puts a lot of people off using Google Ads.
If you’re one of those people nervous of using Google Ads, that’s a real shame because Google have boat loads of traffic you’re missing out on.
If you have my Automated Income Assets Training, I show you how to set up your pages that are Google compliant.
Usually when I run Ads on Microsoft and Google , I use “mini sites” and not landing pages.
I tweaked this to see how lenient Microsoft truly are and how it impacted my Cost Per Click and overall profitability
For this test, I deliberately used a very simple setup.
3. I wanted to see how little I could spend while STILL making a Profit
This test would have been useless to anyone if I had to spend $1,000 on Ads to make a handful of $50 dollar sales.
I wanted to keep it as low as I possibly could to generate at least one sale.
Considerations:
I would share the results with you no matter what the outcome is.
This was a LIVE test.
Meaning I had no idea what the result was going to be.
Good or bad.
But one thing I knew for sure..
If the result was Good I’d be sharing the results.
If the result was Bad, I’d still share the results, because there is value in what didn’t work.
For this test, I set up a BRAND NEW clickbank account specifically for this campaign.
I had no other campaigns currently in play on this account.
Here are the results:
Let’s break those stats down by column (left to right).
So in the first column, you can see “clicks” = 110.
This is how many clicks I was able to get during this test.
In the 2nd column you can see “Impr” this stands for impressions.
This number is 746 and that means 746 people saw my Ad.
Then we see CTR which is Click thru rate.
This just means out of all the people who saw my Ad, click thru rate is the percentage who actually clicked.
Next we can see my CPC. This is cost per click and I was able to get qualified clicks for about $0.77c.
My TOTAL spend for this campaign was $84.47.
You don’t need to worry about the remaining columns, they’re not important.
You might see that the conversions column is ZERO’s.
That’s because as I was sending traffic to an affiliate offer, I didn’t have direct access to the vendors thank you page, therefore I couldn’t track conversions.
But that’s ok because I was only targeting one keyword and one Ad group so any sales would only be coming from one place.
Did I get any sales?
I ran a SEARCH Ads campaign for a total of $84.47.
For that $84, I was able to generate 110 clicks.
My cost per click was just $0.77c.
With CTR (Click-Thru rate) of 14.61%.
An extra word about Click Thru rate:
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Microsoft & Google use this as an indicator of how relevant your ad is.
The HIGHER your CTR is, the LOWER your CPC (cost per click) will be.
14.61% is a very good CTR.
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As a result of this, I was able to generate:
$147.56 in Affiliate Sales
Profit: $63.09
Total sales ($147.56) minus Ad Spend ($84.47)
While $63 isn’t much to write home about, this was a VERY basic campaign.
I deliberately used the bare minimum as a starting point and yet it was still profitable.
A Word About Affiliate Offers On Microsoft Ads
This is a biggie.
As I’ve already said, Microsoft users are a very specific demographic of user.
They are not google.
Their users are not the same as google.
So Affiliate products that work well on Google, might not perform very well on Microsoft Ads.
Microsoft are a LOT less restrictive about Affiliate offers than say Facebook or Google.
But here’s the thing…
Just because they are less restrictive, that doesn’t mean you can choose any vertical to play in.
From experience, not every vertical is suited to Microsoft Ads and not every Affiliate product will sell.
These are a few categories that will work on Microsoft Ads:
- Home based
- Outdoor / Survival
- Green Energy
- DIY
- Fitness for 40+
So with this in mind, make sure you choose a vertical that is suited to their users or you will lose money.
Advantages Of Microsoft Ads
- More relaxed about what you can and cannot say in Ads
- Extremely lenient towards simple landing pages (I discovered that in this test compared to my usual approach)
- Lower General Cost Per Click (I could have got this down even more if I put more effort into the test)
- Higher Conversion rate
- One overall demographic or ‘type’ of user
Disadvantages of Microsoft Ads
- Less traffic than Google / Facebook
- Narrower range of Affiliate offers that will appeal to their users
- Lower overall volume of sales
- Can be slow to get traction (depending on the vertical category you choose)
I’m thinking of doing something I didn’t originally set out to do…
And put together this entire campaign STEP by STEP so that you can watch over my shoulder and see everything I did.
This started out as a test and I’ve already documented 2 videos that was intended to be for myself for future reference.
If I get enough interest, I’ll put together the whole entire thing…
You’ll see:
- How I approached Microsoft Ads and My Campaign Setup.
Microsoft Ads although very similar in nature to Google Ads, their userbase is completely different, you cannot approach Microsoft Ads in the same way as Google Ads.
- The EXACT Keyword I Targeted For This Specific Campaign
Keep in mind, Microsoft Ads has lower search traffic than Google Ads, the success of any campaigns you create, will live and die by the keywords you choose to target, you’ll see my entire process for Microsoft from start to finish!
- The Landing Pages I Created Specifically For This Campaign.
Microsoft’s rules and policies are much more relaxed than Google Ads, so the landing pages you create can be very simple with far less “moving parts”. You’ll see what I mean inside the training.
- The EXACT Affiliate Offer I Chose.
This step is critical. You can’t force an offer to fit the network you’re running Ads on and it’s the biggest mistake I see affiliates making.
They try to shoe horn offers to fit in with platform and some affiliates manage to make it work.
Most don’t.
Not every offer will work on Microsoft Ads due to their user demographic, so you need to be very careful about the “type” of offer you run Ads to.
Get this wrong and you’re trying to fit square pegs into round holes.
- How To Scale Up These Types of Campaigns
This was a test, but if I really wanted to, I could have scaled this right up and in this training I’ll show you 3 ways I would have done it.
You’ll also get access to my Microsoft Ads campaign Set Up Procedure (Ads, settings, distribution, bid, ad group set up) in PDF document format for quick reference.
Once again, if this is something that might interest you then click the button below:
This helps me to gauge interest before putting it all together.
Thanks.
Ben Fletcher
