Bing Ads Matches AdWords with New Unified Device Targeting

Bing Ads has always been right behind Google in terms of bundling their platform with more useful utilities. Now, with Bing Ads’ newly added UDT (Unified Device Targeting), they once again have showed that they’re keeping up in the race of paid search platforms!

As of March 23, Bing Ads has consolidated their device targeting options, likely inspired by Google’s Enhanced Campaigns. Bing Ads no longer allows users to separately target smartphones at the campaign level. Campaigns now automatically target all devices, and based on the device performance, bid adjustments can then be applied for tablets or smartphones.

So, what does this mean for your current campaigns? With UDT in place, here are the changes being made at the campaign level:

What’s surprising about this new addition is that Bing Ads has actually stated in their FAQs that they are in total structural alignment with the Enhanced Campaigns of AdWords. Not only have they announced their parity with AdWords, but they’ve also went ahead and added some additional features which are missing in AdWords, as Bing Ads allows advertisers to set bid adjustments at the tablet level, while Google AdWords does not.

With advertising on Bing Ads making up about 32.7%* of the search share (Microsoft Sites + Yahoo Sites), any enhancement to make the platform simpler and more user-friendly is always a welcome change.

Even with this new change, we feel the tortoise is still behind the hare in the paid search platform race, and Bing Ads still has some ways to go to truly be on par with Google AdWords. However, the addition of Unified Device Tracking is definitely a step in the right direction towards being a more formidable paid advertising platform!

* This data is based on Comscore Search Engine Rankings http://www.comscore.com/Insights/Market-Rankings/comScore-Releases-February-2015-US-Desktop-Search-Engine-Rankings