- Most performance marketers skip Microsoft Advertising because “Bing is small.” For two audiences it is a mistake: B2B buyers and affluent seniors.
- The audience skews older, richer, and more educated than Google’s. Searchlab’s 2026 benchmarks put the average Bing user around 45 versus 38 on Google, with a higher share earning over $75,000.
- For B2B, Microsoft owns LinkedIn, so you can target by company, industry, and job function. Google cannot match that.
- For seniors, the older, desktop-and-Windows audience is exactly who Medicare, insurance, and financial advertisers want, and it is less youth-skewed than Meta or TikTok.
- Clicks run roughly a third cheaper than Google. The catch is volume: Microsoft is a precise channel for the right audience, not a volume play, so it is a complement, not a replacement.
Quick answers:
- What is Microsoft Advertising (Bing Ads)?
- Is Microsoft Advertising good for B2B?
- What is LinkedIn Profile Targeting?
- Does Microsoft Advertising reach older audiences?
- Are Microsoft Ads cheaper than Google Ads?
Microsoft Advertising, the platform most people still call Bing Ads, is the channel performance marketers love to dismiss. The reasoning is always the same: Bing is small, so why bother. That logic costs money. For two specific audiences, Microsoft is one of the best and cheapest channels you can buy, and most of your competitors have written it off. Those audiences are B2B decision-makers and affluent older adults. This is where it wins, where it does not, and how to actually run it.
Who is actually on Microsoft Advertising
Start with the network, because it is bigger than “Bing.” Microsoft powers search ads across Bing, Yahoo, AOL, and DuckDuckGo, plus a wide partner network. It is also the default search in Microsoft Edge and on Windows, which puts it in front of a lot of work computers.
Now the audience, which is the real story. It skews older, wealthier, and more educated than Google’s. Searchlab’s 2026 Microsoft Ads benchmarks draw on Statcounter and Comscore. They put the average Bing user at about 45 years old, versus about 38 on Google (Searchlab). A larger share earns over $75,000 a year, and a larger share holds a college degree. Independent comparisons describe the same skew: an average Bing user around 45, more affluent, and more concentrated in B2B (Improvado). Bing also holds roughly 14% of US desktop search, and closer to a fifth once you add Yahoo (Searchlab).
That profile is the whole point. It is not a smaller Google. It is a different room, full of older, higher-income professionals.
What to do: stop evaluating Microsoft on raw size. Evaluate it on whether your buyer lives in that older, more affluent, more professional audience.
The common mistake: writing it off on market share alone, and handing a cheaper, higher-income audience to the one competitor who bothered to show up.
Why it wins for B2B
This is the part that should change your media plan. Microsoft owns LinkedIn. So Microsoft Advertising can target searchers using LinkedIn profile data, by company, industry, and job function (Microsoft). No other major search platform can do that.
Think about what that means. You can run a search campaign and layer on “people who work in healthcare,” or “people at enterprise companies,” or “people in a finance job function.” On Google you target keywords and hope a decision-maker types them. On Microsoft you can target the actual decision-maker. Search Engine Land has covered this LinkedIn integration as a genuine B2B differentiator (Search Engine Land).
Add the context. A large share of Microsoft’s reach is on work devices, where Bing is the default. So you are reaching professionals, during the workday, on the platform that knows their job title. That is as close to LinkedIn intent at search prices as you can buy.
What to do: if you sell to businesses, run Microsoft with LinkedIn profile targeting layered on your core search campaigns. Then bid up the company sizes and job functions that actually buy.
The common mistake: treating Microsoft as a place to dump your Google B2B campaign unchanged. You leave its single best feature, the LinkedIn targeting, switched off.
Why it wins for the senior market
The same older, affluent skew that helps B2B is exactly what the senior market needs. Medicare, supplemental insurance, annuities, retirement planning, reverse mortgages, and senior living all sell to people in their late fifties and up. That is disproportionately who is on Bing.
It also matches how older buyers behave online. Many of them use a Windows PC with Edge and Bing set as the default, and they never change it. So a senior researching Medicare options is often searching on the exact platform most advertisers ignore. Meanwhile your competition is crowding into Google and spending on the youth-heavy feeds of Meta and TikTok.
What to do: for any senior-focused offer, run a dedicated Microsoft campaign and lean on the older age brackets. Do not treat it as an afterthought to Google. The same audience powers your Medicare and insurance lead generation.
The common mistake: spending the entire senior budget on visual social platforms whose core users are decades younger than your buyer.
The economics: cheaper clicks, less competition
Microsoft is cheaper, and not by a little. Searchlab’s 2026 data, citing WordStream and Merkle, puts average Microsoft search CPCs roughly a third below Google’s (Searchlab). Independent comparisons put the gap even wider, at 30 to 60 percent cheaper for the same keywords (Improvado). The reason is simple: fewer advertisers compete for the same clicks.
For a high-value B2B or senior lead, that gap compounds. You are paying less per click for an audience that is, on average, more qualified to buy. Cheaper and more qualified usually trade off. Here they do not.
Do not read the cheaper click as a worse audience. On Microsoft it usually comes from less competition, not lower quality. Judge the channel on cost per booked deal, not cost per click, and expect the advantage to be largest in expensive verticals like legal, finance, and insurance.
Where Microsoft does not win
Be honest about the ceiling, because this is also where operators get burned. Microsoft’s volume is a fraction of Google’s. You cannot scale it the way you scale Google, so it is a complement, not a replacement.
It is also the wrong channel for some businesses. If you sell to a young consumer audience, or your product lives on visual, impulse-driven discovery, the older search-intent crowd on Microsoft is not your buyer. And in a few thin verticals the search volume is simply too low to matter.
So size it as a high-efficiency slice of the mix, not the engine of it. The operators who get burned here are the ones who expected Microsoft to replace Google, got frustrated by the lower volume, and quit before they captured the cheap, qualified leads it does have.
How to actually run it
Do not just import your Google account and walk away. Microsoft Import Center as the fastest way to get your Google campaigns running on Bing is a starting point, not a strategy. Strip out the campaigns that do not fit the audience, and rebuild the ones that do around what Microsoft does best.
For B2B, that means switching on LinkedIn profile targeting and structuring around company, industry, and job function. For seniors, it means dedicated campaigns tuned to older brackets and the offers they search for. Watch the partner audience network too. Exclude the low-quality placements that spend without converting, the same discipline you would apply to any source you pay for. Then measure to a booked outcome, and feed that back the way you would anywhere you run paid media.
What to do: rebuild, do not copy. Treat the Google import as raw material, then layer on the LinkedIn and audience controls Google does not have.
The common mistake: running the imported Google account on autopilot, which gives you Google’s structure without Microsoft’s advantages.
The 2026 angle: Copilot is expanding the surface
Microsoft is also pushing ads into Copilot, its AI assistant, which is growing fast. That matters for two reasons. The reach is expanding beyond classic search results into AI answers. And AI-assistant sessions tend to carry higher buying intent than a plain search. It is early, so test rather than bet the budget. But the surface you are buying is getting bigger, not smaller.
What to do: keep a small, monitored test budget on the newer Copilot and audience surfaces, and scale only what proves out on cost per booked deal.
The common mistake: ignoring the AI surfaces entirely because the channel feels old. The channel is modernizing while everyone looks away.
Who should use Microsoft Advertising
Use it if you sell to businesses, to professionals, or to older and affluent consumers. It pays off most in a high-cost vertical like legal, finance, insurance, or anything Medicare-adjacent. For those advertisers it is a cheaper, less crowded path to a more qualified buyer.
Skip it, or keep it tiny, if your audience is young, your product is impulse and visual, or you genuinely need the raw volume only Google can give. The skill is not “Microsoft good, Google bad.” It is knowing which of your audiences are sitting in the room everyone else ignored.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Microsoft Advertising (Bing Ads)?
Microsoft Advertising, formerly Bing Ads, is Microsoft’s search and audience ad platform. It runs ads across Bing, Yahoo, AOL, DuckDuckGo, and a partner network, and it is the default search engine in Microsoft Edge and on Windows. It is smaller than Google by volume, but it reaches an older, more affluent, more professional audience, and it now also serves ads in the Copilot AI assistant.
Is Microsoft Advertising good for B2B?
Yes, it is one of the strongest search channels for B2B. Because Microsoft owns LinkedIn, you can target searchers by their LinkedIn company, industry, and job function (Microsoft), which no other major search platform offers. Combined with heavy reach on work computers and lower click costs, it lets you reach decision-makers at search prices.
What is LinkedIn Profile Targeting?
LinkedIn Profile Targeting is a Microsoft Advertising feature that lets you target or bid-adjust by a searcher’s LinkedIn data, specifically their company, industry, and job function (Microsoft). You apply it to a search or audience campaign to focus spend on the professionals most likely to buy. It exists only because Microsoft owns LinkedIn.
Does Microsoft Advertising reach older audiences?
Yes, and that is one of its biggest strengths. Its audience skews older than Google’s, with a higher average age and a meaningful share of users 55 and up (Searchlab). Many older users default to Bing through Windows and Edge and never switch. That makes it a strong, underused channel for Medicare, insurance, financial, and retirement offers.
Are Microsoft Ads cheaper than Google Ads?
Usually, yes. Average Microsoft search CPCs run roughly a third below Google’s, mainly because fewer advertisers compete for the clicks (Searchlab). The savings tend to be largest in expensive verticals like legal, finance, and insurance. Judge it on cost per booked deal rather than the click price alone, since the cheaper click often comes with a more qualified, higher-income audience.
