Bing is gaining increasing reach in Switzerland and is thus becoming increasingly interesting for advertisers. An industry-wide assumption is that Bing can offer cheaper CPCs than Google. We have checked for you whether this assumption does in fact correspond to reality.
Google or Bing – The Analysis
We have analyzed 3,000 keywords from a wide variety of industries such as retail, tourism and customer care, checking them in Google and Bing. Only keywords with a search volume in both Google and Bing were considered. Both brand keywords and generic keywords were considered. Only exact keywords were evaluated as keyword match types to avoid the influence of different match types.
Lower Cost in Bing for Generic Keywords
At first glance, you’ll notice that Bing’s CPC costs are in fact lower than those of Google. However, if we take a closer look at the results, it becomes clear that this is not always the case, as the click prices per keyword vary considerably between industries.
In the tourism industry, it is noticeable that the click prices of generic and brand keywords are significantly higher than those of Google. For example, the average click on a brand keyword in Google costs advertisers 0.79 CHF, while Bing charges an average of 0.90 CHF. The analysis of generic keywords gives a similar picture: Here too, the costs per click in Bing are higher than those of Google.
In the retail industry, however, it is noticeable that there is a clear difference between generic and brand keywords. Brand keywords in Bing are twice as expensive as in Google. The picture is reversed for generic retail keywords and click prices in Google are twice as expensive as those in Bing.
While there are clear differences between Google and Bing in the tourism and retail industry, it is striking that in the customer care sector the costs per click are almost identical in both search engines.
The analysis shows that Bing can indeed offer lower CPC prices than Google. However, if the sectors are viewed separately, clear differences can be seen between the individual sectors. The biggest differences are in the retail industry, as brand keywords are much more expensive in Bing than in Google, but the generic keywords are much cheaper. While in other industries (tourism, customer care) both search engines offer almost identical average costs per click. Therefore, it is difficult to recommend SEA campaigns in Bing based only on the argument of favorable CPCs.
As the analysis shows, it is more advisable to check both brand and generic keywords for the individual industries and derive a strategy from this. For Bing, despite in some cases having a higher CPC, the budget can still be used efficiently with the right strategy.
