Bing Bid Types: What’s Available and What’s Right For You?

The world of paid media is fiercely competitive, and even the smallest of tweaks to a campaign can have a dramatic impact on performance. With such a fine line between success and failure, optimising each and every aspect of your campaigns is vital – and one of the most important factors to consider is your bid strategy.

If you’re new to Bing Ads – or Microsoft Ads as they’re now called – and want to learn about the different bid strategies available, how they work and which one’s right for your campaign, you’ve come to the right place. In this guide, we’re going to walk you through the various options available, explaining what makes them different.

Understanding Bing Ads bidding

Before we dive into the specifics, let’s first cover the basics of bid strategies and why they’re so important. In essence, a bidding strategy dictates how Microsoft’s platform will bid on the keywords you select. It’s not to be confused with your budget or budget type; regardless of which bidding strategy you choose, Microsoft Ads will still only bid up to your budget limit.

Every time you create a campaign on Microsoft Ads, you’ll have to choose a bidding strategy – and it’s important to choose one that aligns with your current goals. For instance, some strategies focus purely on boosting sales, while others are intended to maximise your conversion value or simply generate the highest possible number of clicks.

If your goal is to build brand awareness, you might want to opt for a strategy that maximises clicks – but if you’re focused more on generating leads or sales, that same strategy might not work for you. That’s why choosing the right bidding strategy is so important.

Popular Bing Ads bid strategies explained

Want to know how to choose the right strategy for your campaign? We’ve provided an overview of the most popular strategies and what makes them unique below.

CostPerSale (CPS)

Suitable for shopping campaigns, CostPerSale means you only pay for clicks on your ads when they generate a sale.

EnhancedCpc

The default strategy for search (and most shopping) campaigns, EnhancedCpc allows you to set keyword and ad group bids. Once they’re in place, Microsoft Ads will automatically adjust your bids to maximise the chances of your ads generating conversions, placing higher bids on more lucrative searches and dialling spending back for search terms that have a lower conversion rate. 

ManualCpc

For those looking to have complete control over their bids on audience campaigns, ManualCpc could be the answer. You’ll have the freedom to use Microsoft’s ad auction system as you wish, placing bids manually on a cost-per-click basis.

ManualCpm

Like ManualCpc, but instead bids are placed per 1,000 impressions (not per click). This makes it a great choice for brands looking to get noticed and raise their profile. 

ManualCpv

Much like the two previous options, but focusing on cost-per-view on video ads. 

MaxClicks

A fairly straightforward one: MaxClicks focuses solely on driving the maximum number of visitors to your site possible, making it ideal for brands looking to gather momentum and build their audience. This strategy also allows you to set a maximum cost-per-click if you wish, and works with search and shopping campaigns. 

MaxConversions

A popular choice for those looking to drive leads and sales, MaxConversions will alter your bids automatically to generate the highest possible number of conversions. Suitable for use with search, shopping and audience campaigns, this strategy doesn’t allow you to manually alter bids for individual keywords. The entire process is automatic – all you have to do is set a budget limit. 

MaxConversionValue

If you’d like to focus on generating higher value conversions from your ads, this is the strategy for you. Compatible with search and shopping campaigns (but not Microsoft Store ads), this strategy also gives you the ability to target a specific ROAS figure. 

TargetCpa

This option focuses on cost-per-acquisition (CPA). If you choose this strategy, you’ll have to set a 30-day average CPA target along with your budget limit, which Microsoft Ads will try to meet. TargetCpa works with search, shopping and audience campaigns. 

TargetRoas

Standing for return on ad spend, ROAS is an all-important metric in paid media, and this bid strategy aims to optimise it. Simply set a budget limit (and a maximum cost-per-click if you wish) and Microsoft’s ad platform will do its best to boost your ROAS on search and shopping campaigns. 

Best Practices for Bing Ads Bidding

• Set up conversion tracking (and check it’s working correctly): Many of the bid strategies we’ve outlined above will need conversion tracking to be implemented in order to work correctly, so make sure you have this set up before you dive into Microsoft Ads and start your first campaign.

• Put your faith in automated bidding strategies: Although it might be tempting to bid manually, Microsoft’s automated bidding strategies are highly effective and can generally deliver better results than traditional, manual bidding methods.

• Allow plenty of time to assess a campaign’s performance: Most of the bid strategies we’ve featured in this blog (particularly the conversion-focused ones) need time to gather steam and really generate results. You can’t truly evaluate a campaign’s performance until a few months have passed.

Need help getting your Microsoft Ads campaign off the ground?

With a 34% lower cost-per-click than Google Ads, Microsoft Ads are a great way to get your brand noticed without spending a fortune. As a certified Microsoft Advertising Partner with more than two decades of experience, we can help your brand flourish by creating stand-out paid media ads for search, shopping, video campaigns and more. To learn more about what we do, check out our case studies to see how we’ve helped businesses just like yours.