Is Microsoft Advertising worth it for UK businesses?
by Harry Watts · · updated · 7 min read
The clicks cost about a third less. The audience is about a tenth the size. Both facts are true, and neither answers the question, because the answer depends almost entirely on how your customers buy.
Microsoft Advertising, called Bing Ads until 2019, is the platform UK advertisers most often ignore, and the one most often oversold as "cheap Google". Here's the honest sizing: what it is, the one statistic that decides most cases, and the three situations where it isn't worth the setup time.
What you're actually buying
It is Microsoft's version of Google Ads: you bid to appear in the sponsored results when someone searches on Bing, and pay only when they click. One campaign on Microsoft Advertising serves the whole Microsoft Search Network: Bing itself, searches on partners like DuckDuckGo, Yahoo and Ecosia, and placements across Microsoft's own surfaces (Edge, Windows, and now Copilot's conversational results). In the UK that adds up to roughly 6% of searches and around 28 million desktop searchers a month.
Small next to Google's nine-in-ten share. But raw share is the wrong lens, because of where that 6% sits.
The statistic that decides most cases
Bing carries over 12% of UK desktop search, and under 1% of mobile. It's the default in Edge and Windows, so its audience is overwhelmingly people searching from a computer: office workers, older users, professionals on work machines during work hours.
That single split answers the worth-it question for most businesses:
- Sell to people at desks: B2B services, software, finance-adjacent, considered purchases researched at work. Microsoft holds a meaningful eighth of your market at a discount.
- Sell to people on phones: emergency trades, takeaways, anything found in a pocket. The network barely contains your customers at any price.
Why the clicks are cheaper, and when cheap matters
Clicks often run around a third cheaper than Google's, for the least mysterious reason in advertising: fewer bidders in every auction. Many UK advertisers never set the platform up, so the ones who do buy the same searcher for less.
Two cautions before that becomes the whole argument. Cheaper clicks only matter if they convert — the deciding number is cost per customer, not cost per click, and the arithmetic is identical on both platforms. And the discount is a function of neglect: in sectors where every competitor already runs Microsoft, it shrinks.
The pleasant surprise runs the other way: because the audience skews professional and desktop, some sectors see better conversion rates than on Google, not just cheaper traffic. B2B most of all.
The B2B card nobody else holds
Microsoft owns LinkedIn, and Microsoft Advertising is the only search platform with LinkedIn profile targeting: bid adjustments by company, industry and job function, on ordinary search campaigns.
It's a bid adjustment rather than a hard filter: you boost bids when the searcher matches, rather than excluding everyone who doesn't, but no Google campaign can do anything like it. If your customer is "operations directors at manufacturing firms", this is the closest paid search gets to saying so out loud.
Who should add it
- B2B and lead generation: the LinkedIn targeting plus the office-desktop audience is the strongest combined case.
- Advertisers winning on Google but capped by budget. If profitable campaigns are losing impression share to budget, Microsoft is the cheapest place to buy more of the same demand.
- Desktop-researched purchases: professional services, software, higher-ticket considered buys.
- Anyone whose Google account already converts reliably, because the fastest route in is copying what works.
Who should skip it, for now
- Mobile-first local services. An emergency plumber's customer is on a phone; Microsoft barely has them. The same goes for most on-demand local trades.
- Small budgets still proving Google. Splitting £500 a month across two platforms halves the data both need to learn. Concentrate first; diversify once something works.
- Accounts where Google isn't converting yet. Importing a broken account buys you the same problems at a discount. Fix the measurement and the offer first.
The import, and the trap inside it
Microsoft's Google Import copies campaigns, ad groups, keywords and ads straight from your Google account, and can re-sync on a schedule. Genuinely useful: a working account in an afternoon rather than a rebuild.
The trap is treating imported as finished:
- Bids import at Google prices. You'll overpay in cheaper auctions until they're cut to Microsoft levels.
- Conversion tracking doesn't come across. Microsoft's UET tag is its own installation, wired into your consent setup like any other tag. Skip it and the account flies blind from day one.
- Settings deserve the same audit as Google's: location options, networks, negatives. The same defaults leak money here too.
On Copilot: ads appearing inside conversational results are included in ordinary campaigns, and they're a bonus, not a reason to buy. The same test-small logic as ChatGPT Ads applies to conversational placements everywhere.
The verdict
Microsoft Advertising is a second channel, not a first one. Prove the offer and the economics on Google, where the volume is; then, if your customers include anyone at a desk, the import gives you an eighth more market at a third off in an afternoon's work. For B2B it's closer to essential than optional.
Quick answers
Is it the same as Bing Ads?
Yes. Bing Ads was renamed Microsoft Advertising in 2019, and it is the same platform: you bid to appear in the sponsored results on Bing and its partner sites, and pay only when someone clicks.
Is Microsoft Advertising worth it in the UK?
As a second channel, often: 6% of UK searches, clicks about a third cheaper, strongest for B2B and desktop purchases. As a first channel, rarely: prove it on Google first.
How much cheaper than Google?
Often around a third, because fewer advertisers bid. The gap varies by sector, and only matters if the clicks convert: judge cost per customer, not per click.
Can I import my Google campaigns?
Yes. Google Import copies the account and can re-sync. Then cut the bids, re-check settings, and install the UET tag: conversion tracking doesn't carry over.
Who actually uses Bing?
Desktop users: over 12% of UK desktop search, under 1% of mobile. Default in Edge and Windows, so the audience skews older, professional and office-based. Partners like DuckDuckGo and Copilot placements ride along.
Does it work for B2B?
It's the platform's strongest case: LinkedIn profile targeting (company, industry, job function) on search campaigns, plus an audience searching from work machines in work hours.
Thinking about adding it
Adding Microsoft Ads to a Google account I already run raises the fee but doesn't double it, because the groundwork is shared: campaigns import from Google, and the research and the weekly routine carry across. It still needs its own tracking, its own bids and its own search-term review, which is why the fee rises at all. The fee doesn't grow with your ad spend on either, and I can also run Microsoft Ads individually. A free intro call is enough to say whether your customers are on the network at all; if they aren't, you'll hear that. And if a Microsoft credit offer is what brought you here, what each platform makes you spend before it pays out is the part worth reading first.