Bing Shopping vs Google Shopping: Where to Put Your Money

In today’s competitive e-commerce landscape, businesses often compare the benefits of using Google Shopping vs. Bing Shopping to determine the most effective platform for their advertising campaigns. With Google dominating the search market, it’s easy to overlook Bing. However, even a small percentage of users on Bing can still mean a substantial number of potential customers for your business. Ignoring either platform can result in missed opportunities for increased visibility.

In this article, I’ll analyze Google Shopping ads and Bing Shopping ads and provide insights on how to effectively leverage them for your e-commerce business.

Google Shopping provides a distinctive segment of Google that enables users to explore and buy items from online sellers and local retailers. The service displays product listings along with product images, pricing, and descriptions in a user-friendly interface, making it easy for users to compare products and prices from different online retailers.

Product listing ads:

Google Search ads:

Google Shopping tab:

The Shopping tab interface is deliberately designed to showcase high-quality product images and descriptions, facilitating product comparison for consumers. In the screenshot below you can see features, additional pictures and reviews of the product. Online stores selling this item, prices, delivery information and return conditions are located on the right. 

Google Shopping is supported by two primary platforms, which are Google Ads and Google Merchant Center. Your product feed is located on Google Merchant Center, providing you with the opportunity to tailor your offerings and refine your product listings to generate more sales. 

Check out the video below to learn more about getting started with Google Shopping and creating a Google Merchant Center account:

Learn more about Google Ads in our article on Performance Max vs Standard Shopping where you will find the key differences between these two types of ad campaigns.

With Bing Product Ads, your products can be prominently displayed at the top of search results or in the sidebar, complete with your product image, price, and company name. When a user clicks on your ad, they are taken directly to your website’s product page, increasing the likelihood of a sale. This efficient advertising method can help you achieve a higher return on investment and better market positioning for your products.

With Microsoft Shopping Ads, you can showcase your products on various search engines such as Bing, Yahoo, and AOL, as well as on syndicated partner sites like MSN.com or Bing.co.uk. Products will also be shown in the Shopping tab of all these search engines. Check out the list of countries where Microsoft Advertising shows your ads here. 

Ad campaign on Bing:

Ad campaign on Yahoo:

Ad campaign on AOL:

To get started with Bing Shopping and display your products on the Microsoft Search Network, follow the instructions on creating  Microsoft Merchant Center store.

Watch this webinar detailing the basics and key terms of Bing Shopping Campaigns:

Check out our article on how to set up Bing Shopping ads.

In July 2023, a new campaign type — Microsoft Performance Max — entered its open beta phase. It is designed to assist advertisers in connecting with a broader audience on Bing, AOL, Yahoo, Outlook, and beyond.

There are a number of differences between the two platforms. However, Bing Shopping and Google Shopping share many similarities in terms of the features and benefits they offer to businesses. Here are the main similarities:

1. E-commerce PPC advertising: Both platforms operate on a pay-per-click (PPC) advertising model, where businesses pay for each click on their ads.
2. Merchant Center: Both platforms require businesses to use a merchant center to create and manage their product feed.
3. Product listing ads: Both platforms allow businesses to showcase their products through product listing ads that feature product images, titles, and prices.
4. Ad targeting: Both platforms offer various targeting options to help businesses reach their desired audience, such as targeting by location, device, and demographics.
5. Ad management: Both platforms provide tools to help businesses manage their ads, including bid optimization and performance tracking.
6. Free options: Both Google and Bing have free listing options that allow merchants to showcase their products for free.

We are going to discuss the comparison between Google and Bing, two of the most popular search engines used today. By examining their respective strengths and weaknesses, we can gain a better understanding of which search engine is the better option for specific needs and preferences.

When it comes to search engines, Google is undoubtedly the king of the market with a global desktop market share of around 85% (as of January 2023). Bing holds a much smaller market share of approximately 9%. Despite this, Bing has been gaining ground in recent years. Microsoft has made efforts to differentiate itself from Google by offering unique features such as a more visually-focused search experience and adding AI to its Edge browser and Bing search engine. However, Google’s dominance in the search engine market is unlikely to be challenged anytime soon, as its brand recognition and vast resources make it difficult for competitors to catch up.

Let’s compare Bing Shopping traffic vs Google Shopping traffic.

Check out the infographic below to learn more about users of both search engines:

While Bing is not as widely used as Google, it still attracts a considerable amount of traffic. 

In summary, the audience of Bing tends to be older, more geographically concentrated in the United States, and more focused on travel, shopping, and local search, while the audience of Google is generally younger, more global, and focused on general information and research.

Google Shopping offers a range of targeting options, including location, language, device, and audience targeting. Within audience targeting, businesses can target specific customer segments based on factors such as demographics, interests, and behaviors. However, these targeting options are only available for Standard Shopping campaigns. There are also automated Shopping campaigns (Performance Max), in which only location and language are available.

Bing also has Standard Shopping campaigns with these targeting options, and there is an automated (Smart Shopping) one, in which, just like in Performance Max, almost nothing can be set up.

However, Bing does offer a unique targeting option called “LinkedIn Profile Targeting,” which allows businesses to target users based on their LinkedIn profile information.

Overall, both platforms offer a range of ad targeting options. Bing Shopping also offers LinkedIn Profile Targeting, which may be particularly useful for businesses looking to target a professional audience.

By selecting Google Shopping ads, you will gain access to a wide range of field options to enhance your product listing. Google requires a variety of fields to be included in your Shopping ad:

• [id]
• [title]
• [description]
• [link]
• [image_link]
• [availability]
• [price]
• [brand]
• [gtin] or [mpn]

However, some categories of goods in different countries have their own extended lists of required attributes. For example, if you sell clothes in the USA, then the following attributes will be obligatory:

• [color]
• [gender]
• [age_group]

That is not the full list. There are many other optional fields that can be utilized to enhance the ad experience. 

Regarding Bing Shopping ads, there is a smaller set of mandatory fields to complete for your advertisements. Only the following fields are required:

• [id]
• [title]
• [link]
• [price] (excluding tax and shipping)
• [description]
• [image_link]

According to the 2019 Performance Benchmarks Report by WordStream, Google Shopping ads have an average cost per click (CPC) of $0.66, while Bing Product ads have an average CPC of $0.46. This variance in CPC may not hold the same weight across all industries. However, for industries that deal with high-priced items, it can make a significant difference in potential business gains or losses.

Although commission rates for Google Shopping ads are generally higher than those of Bing Product ads, most of your revenue on either platform will likely come from ad clicks due to their pay-per-click (PPC) model.

It’s important to note that while Bing may have a lower average CPC, it also tends to have a smaller audience compared to Google. This means that although individual clicks may be cheaper on Bing, businesses may need to invest in more clicks to achieve the same level of exposure as they would on Google.

Negative keywords are essentially a list of terms that a business can exclude from its ad targeting to ensure that its products are not displayed to irrelevant audiences.

In Bing and Google, adding negative keywords to Shopping campaigns is only available for Standard campaigns. As for automated ones (Performance Max in Google and Smart Shopping in Bing), there is no option to add negative keywords in Bing, but this can be done for PMax campaigns either at the level of the entire account, or at the campaign level through Google technical support.

Additionally, both Google and Bing also offer a feature called “search terms,” which allows businesses to view the specific search queries that triggered their ads. This information can be used to identify new negative keywords and further optimize campaigns.

Here’s a comparison table between Google Shopping and Bing Shopping to help you decide which one to choose:

If you also think about utilizing paid social media, check out our article on Google Shopping vs Facebook Ads.

Both platforms have their own advantages and disadvantages.

When it comes to promoting products online, businesses often debate between using Bing Shopping Ads vs. Google Shopping Ads to determine which platform will give them the best results. In summary, Google Shopping has a larger market share, more extensive ad targeting options, and a more robust merchant center. Bing Shopping, on the other hand, generally has lower CPCs, but the performance can be lower as well. The choice ultimately depends on your business’s specific needs and goals.

Check out our article on the best ad platforms for e-commerce to discover other options. 

Lira Agency provides exceptional Microsoft Shopping management services to help businesses succeed in the ever-evolving e-commerce landscape. Contact us today to learn more about how our expert team can drive increased conversions for your online store.

Marketing Specialist and Content Writer at Lira Agency. I enjoy creating valuable and informative content for our clients and visitors. I spend my free time reading books on marketing and psychology.