Bing Ads vs Google Ads: which one delivers more for B2B?

Microsoft Ads or Google Ads? For B2B marketers in the Benelux that is a fair question, because your budget can only be spent once. The short answer: Google Ads is the starting point for almost everyone because of its reach, and Microsoft Ads is a valuable addition you test once your foundation is in place. But that answer is too easy without the numbers it rests on. In this article we compare both channels on the three things that genuinely matter for B2B: reach, cost per click and the audience you reach.

Want the basics first? Then read what SEA is as a starting point and come back here to make your channel choice.

What it really comes down to

Before we put the two side by side, one principle that drives everything. An advertising channel is not a goal, it is a way to put your offer in front of the right buyer at the moment they are searching. So the question is not which platform is technically the best, but which platform your buyers use and at what cost you get a lead out of it. Both channels run on the same model: someone types a query, you show up with an ad, you pay per click. The difference lies in the volume, the price and who is searching on the other side.

Reach: Google has the volume

On reach, it is not a fair fight. Google is by far the dominant search engine, and the vast majority of business search demand in the Benelux passes through it. That has a direct consequence for B2B: if you offer a niche product or a very specific service, chances are the search volume on Microsoft Ads for your keywords is simply too small to build a campaign on. You will get impressions, but too few to steer on.

Google Ads therefore gives you the scale. If you want to fill your pipeline tomorrow with people actively looking for your solution, that traffic is almost certainly on Google. For most B2B companies, that is why Google is and remains the main channel.

Microsoft Ads serves a smaller audience. That sounds like a disadvantage, and on pure volume it is. But less reach does not mean less value, because in B2B it is not about how many people you reach, but which ones. More on that shortly.

Cost per click: where Microsoft can win

Here the picture flips. Because fewer advertisers bid on Microsoft Ads, competition on many keywords is lower. In an auction model, lower competition usually means a lower cost per click. For the same keyword you often pay less on Microsoft than on Google. That makes the channel attractive for anyone who wants to stretch their budget further.

Do watch out for the trap. A lower click price is only worth something if that click also leads to a lead. A cheap click that never converts is more expensive than an expensive click that produces a meeting. So the right comparison is not cost per click, but cost per lead and ultimately per closed deal. It may well be that Microsoft has a lower click price but a comparable or even higher cost per lead, or exactly the other way around. You only know once you measure it per channel.

Want to go deeper into the numbers? Then read how Google Ads cost is built up and what a realistic click price is for your industry, so you compare with Microsoft on a fair basis.

Audience: the B2B case for Microsoft

This is where Microsoft Ads gets interesting for B2B. Microsoft owns LinkedIn, and in Microsoft Ads you can refine your audience based on professional characteristics such as industry, company size and job function. For a B2B company that wants to reach a specific decision maker, that is a powerful lever you do not have in the same way on Google.

Say you sell a solution that is only relevant to IT managers at mid-sized companies. On Google you mainly rely on the keyword and the context. On Microsoft you can layer profile data on top of that, which helps you steer your budget towards exactly that profile. In niches where the buyer is sharply defined, that can be the difference between wasted budget and targeted enquiries.

On the other hand, the search engine’s own audience has a character of its own. It is often used in business environments where the default browser is still set to Microsoft, which can give the traffic a slightly more corporate tint. How strongly that effect plays out in your market, you will only find out by testing it.

Important to stay realistic: this targeting is only valuable if your audience is sharp enough to be defined in the first place. If you sell broadly to every type of company, the profile data adds little and you fall back on pure search demand, where Google has the advantage again. The more specific your ideal customer, the more the LinkedIn argument weighs in Microsoft’s favour. For a specialised niche solution it can be decisive, for a generic service barely. Weigh that against the smaller reach before you put budget behind it, because a perfectly defined audience that is too small still produces too few enquiries to steer on.

Which channel delivers more?

The honest answer: it depends on your situation, and you decide it on numbers, not on gut feel. Google almost always wins on volume, so if your goal is to bring in as many qualified enquiries as possible, that is where you start. Microsoft can win on efficiency per lead in a defined niche, especially if you use the LinkedIn profile data well and the click price is lower.

The mistake we often see is that companies switch on both channels without measuring per channel what comes out at the bottom. You then steer on click price or on ROAS figures that say nothing about your pipeline. For B2B, the only comparison that counts is: how much does a lead cost per channel, how many of those leads become a real sales opportunity, and how many of those do you win? Only when you see that per channel do you know where your euro works hardest.

That calls for a measurement setup that reaches beyond the ad platform. A lead that becomes a deal in your CRM has to be fed back to the channel that brought it in. Without those offline conversions in Google Ads, you are comparing apples to oranges and picking the wrong channel to scale.

A practical order

For most B2B companies in the Benelux, the approach looks like this. First set up Google Ads properly, because that is where the volume is and that is where you prove whether paid search works for you. Get your conversion measurement in order, define what a real lead is, and steer on cost per lead. Only once that foundation is in place and pays off do you test Microsoft Ads as a second channel. You copy your best performing campaigns, measure separately what they deliver, and scale what works. How to set up Microsoft Advertising alongside Google Ads is something we cover separately for you.

That way you avoid switching on a second channel before you understand the first. And you stay in control: one strategy, two channels, the same definition of success. That is exactly how we approach paid search, as the fast acquisition layer of one steered growth engine rather than a standalone campaign billed on clicks.

The role of a partner

Managing two channels at once, each with its own auction, audience build and measurement setup, takes time and experience. It is perfectly doable, but the gains sit in the details: excluding the right search terms, setting the audience sharply, and above all structuring the measurement so that you make decisions on pipeline and not on vanity numbers. An experienced Google Ads specialist puts that structure in place so you steer on the right number from day one, no matter which channel brings in the lead.

Want to know whether Microsoft Ads is worth it for your market alongside your existing Google campaigns? Put your situation to us. We look at your audience, your search demand and your current numbers, and tell you honestly which channel will fill your pipeline fastest. Get in touch and we will look at it together.