Bing Ads are Now Called Microsoft Ads

It was just about this time last year when we were greeted with the news that Google was rebranding their advertising platform from Google Adwords to the more succinctly named Google Ads. The higher-ups at the tech giant made the call to rebrand their advertising offerings in an effort to reflect their shifting priorities, and marketing agencies around the globe reacted accordingly.

Now that we’ve all gotten settled and used to the changes, we’ve found our groove just in time to hear the news in April that Microsoft was doing something similar. Gone are Bing Ads, and in their place are Microsoft Ads. So what gives? Why the change? Let’s dig in.

Expanding the Scope

The biggest and most pertinent reason that Microsoft has decided to make this switch is simple, and it follows the blueprint that Google laid out last year: ads don’t just show up in search engines anymore. Ads are everywhere, and with retargeting, they follow consumers across devices and across websites.

The name change fits this growth. Since ads aren’t limited to just appearing on search engines, it doesn’t make a ton of sense for ads on websites and other mediums to show up under the Bing label. The Microsoft Ads rebranding allows for Microsoft expand the reach of its ads beyond the pay-per-click model through the use of the Microsoft Audience Network.

What It All Means

In an April blog post that coincided with the launch of Microsoft Ads, Rik van der Kooi, the corporate VP of Microsoft Advertising, laid out a few of the reasons why this was happening and what marketers could come to expect.

Bing has been experiencing a hot streak of share growth – it cracked 100 consecutive months – and Microsoft is parlaying that strong showing into a wider scope of advertising opportunities. Van der Kooi says that will mean a higher presence of built-in AI, which will help ads reach more people across more platforms.

Although Bing Ads are now called Microsoft Ads, this name change isn’t going to affect your day-to-day work that much. You’ll just have to adjust some bookkeeping-related things to reflect the updated name, but the actual mechanics of how it all works won’t change.

New Partner Program

One new wrinkle that Microsoft has introduced, though, is the revamped Bing Ads Partner Program. Now it’s called the Microsoft Advertising Partner Program. This rebrand comes in conjunction with the arrival of Sponsored Products.

This new marketing effort allows manufacturers and retailers to split the costs of an ad campaign, and each will see added benefits that weren’t otherwise available. It highlights certain products, and it lets manufacturers see the results of a campaign directly through the retailer, as opposed to a birds-eye view of the product’s performance as a whole. This helps them understand how much partnering with a certain retailer either helps or hampers a product.

Sound Interesting? Learn More from the Experts!

With the announcement that Bing Ads are now called Microsoft Ads coming hot on the heels of Google’s rebrand, advertising behemoths are adapting. And unless businesses and agencies keep up with the times, they’ll get left in the dust.

Curious about how to make your business perform better with these changes? Let the digital marketing experts at VitalStorm give you a leg up! Whether it’s through a specialized PPC campaign, an all-encompassing content marketing strategy, or something else entirely, we’ll make it happen.

Give us a call at 1-877-311-5695 to speak to one of our team members today!