Microsoft Ads (Bing): The Cheapest Clicks in Australia?

Microsoft Ads, formerly Bing Ads, often delivers cheaper clicks than Google because far fewer advertisers compete for the same searches. It runs across Bing, Yahoo and the wider Microsoft Search Network, skews older, higher income and desktop, and adds LinkedIn targeting. The reach is smaller, but the clicks are quality, so it usually complements Google rather than replacing it.

What Microsoft Ads is

Microsoft Ads is the search advertising platform from Microsoft, run through a tool called Microsoft Advertising. Most people still know it as Bing Ads, the old name, and plenty search for bing advertising or bing ads out of habit. It is the same product. Your text ads appear above and beside the results on Microsoft’s own search engines, the way Google Ads appear on Google.

The key thing to understand is reach. Microsoft Ads does not just cover Bing. Your ads run across the whole Microsoft Search Network, which includes Bing, Yahoo, AOL, the search box built into Windows, and searches made through Microsoft Edge and Microsoft Copilot. That is a much larger pool of people than “just Bing” suggests, and a lot of them never realise they are using a Microsoft search engine at all.

Who is actually on the Microsoft Search Network

The audience is the reason Microsoft Ads works for some businesses and not others. It is not a smaller copy of Google’s audience. It leans in a specific direction, and that direction matters when you decide whether to spend here.

• Older and higher income. The network skews towards an older demographic with more disposable income. Bing is the default search engine on Windows and in Edge, so many of these users never changed the defaults, which tends to mean settled, established households rather than early adopters.
• Desktop and workplace. A large share of searches happen on desktop, often at work, because so many organisations run Windows and Edge as standard. That makes it strong for considered, research-led queries people make from a desk rather than a phone on the couch.
• B2B and professional. Because of that workplace tilt, Microsoft Ads reaches business and professional users well. If you sell to other businesses, your buyers are often searching from a Windows machine inside an office, which is exactly where these ads show.

None of this makes the audience better than Google’s. It makes it different, and for the right business that is the whole point, because you reach people your competitors on Google are not fighting as hard for.

Why the clicks are often cheaper

This is the headline, and the reason the question “are these the cheapest clicks in Australia” gets asked at all. Cost per click on Microsoft Ads is frequently lower than on Google, and the reason is simple economics.

Search ads run on an auction, and the price of a click is set by how many advertisers want that search. Google has the lion’s share of the market, so almost every advertiser is there, all bidding against each other and pushing prices up. Microsoft has a smaller slice, which means fewer advertisers compete for the same keywords. Less competition in the auction means lower cost per click, often noticeably lower, for searches that would cost a lot more on Google.

The honest caveat is that cheaper per click is not the same as cheaper per customer. A low cost per click only helps if those clicks convert. The good news is they often do, because the audience tends to be high quality and the intent is identical. Someone searching “commercial accountant Perth” on Bing wants the same thing as someone searching it on Google. You are just paying less to reach them. We make the same point about Google in what Google Ads cost in Australia: the right measure is always cost per enquiry, not cost per click.

Factor	Microsoft Advertising	Google Ads
Cost per click	Often lower, fewer advertisers competing	Higher in most categories, everyone is bidding
Search volume	Smaller, a fraction of Google in Australia	Dominant, the bulk of search demand
Audience	Older, higher income, desktop and workplace	Broad, every demographic and device
Unique targeting	LinkedIn profile targeting by company, industry and job	No LinkedIn profile data
Best for	B2B, professional services, considered purchases	Scale and reach across almost every category
Getting started	Import your Google Ads account in minutes	Build and manage natively

When Microsoft Ads is worth running

Microsoft Ads earns its place when the audience tilt lines up with who you sell to, and when budget efficiency matters. It is not for everyone, but for the right business it is one of the most underused channels going.

• B2B and professional services. Accountants, lawyers, financial advisers, consultants, IT and SaaS. Your buyers research from a desk, often at work, on the exact machines where Microsoft Ads show. This is the strongest fit.
• Considered, higher-value purchases. Anything people research carefully before they buy. The older, higher-income, desktop audience matches the profile of a deliberate buyer rather than an impulse one.
• Stretching a limited budget. If your Google budget runs out before the day does in a competitive category, cheaper clicks on Microsoft buy reach you cannot afford on Google. It is a sensible way to get more enquiries from the same spend.
• Capturing demand your competitors ignore. Plenty of advertisers never bother with Microsoft Ads, which leaves the auction less crowded and the audience less fought over. That gap is the opportunity.

It is a weaker fit for anything aimed squarely at a young, mobile-first, impulse audience. That crowd lives on social feeds, not the Microsoft Search Network, and you would be better served by the comparison we draw in Google Ads versus Facebook Ads.

The LinkedIn targeting advantage

Here is the feature that genuinely sets Microsoft Ads apart, and it exists because Microsoft owns LinkedIn. You can layer LinkedIn profile targeting onto your search campaigns, something Google cannot do.

That means you can adjust your bids, or restrict who sees your ads, based on professional data drawn from LinkedIn: a person’s company, their industry and their job function. For a B2B business this is powerful. You can bid more aggressively when the searcher works in the industries you sell to, or holds the kind of role that signs off on your product, and pull back when they do not. You are no longer just targeting a keyword, you are targeting the keyword and the person behind it. For professional services and B2B, that is often reason enough to run Microsoft Ads on its own merits, separate from the cheaper clicks.

How easy it is to import from Google Ads

The most common objection to Microsoft Ads is “I do not have time to build another account”. You do not need to. Microsoft built the platform to make switching painless, because it wants Google advertisers to come across.

You can import your existing Google Ads account directly into Microsoft Ads. It brings over your campaigns, ad groups, keywords, ads and most settings in one move, so you are not starting from a blank page. You can do a one-off import to get going, or schedule it to sync regularly so changes you make in Google flow through automatically.

That said, import and forget is a mistake. The audience, the competition and the cost per click are all different, so a campaign tuned for Google is not automatically tuned for Microsoft. The import gets you live in an afternoon. The results come from then adjusting bids, negatives and budgets for the Microsoft audience rather than treating it as a carbon copy of your Google account.

The honest verdict: complement, not replacement

Time for the part the hype usually skips. Microsoft Ads has a real limitation, and it is reach. Google dominates search in Australia, so the search volume on the Microsoft Search Network is a fraction of Google’s. Whatever the audience quality, fewer people are searching, which caps how many clicks and enquiries you can get. Anyone telling you Microsoft can replace Google for most businesses is overselling it.

So the right way to think about microsoft ads australia is as a complement. You run Google Ads for the bulk of search demand, then add Microsoft Ads to pick up high-quality, lower-cost clicks that Google misses, often from an older, more professional, higher-income audience you value. For the cost of an import and some tuning, it frequently returns enquiries at a lower cost per lead. That is a good trade for almost any B2B or considered-purchase business. The bing ads vs google ads framing is the wrong one. It is rarely either or. It is Google for scale, Microsoft for efficient extra reach, and the two together beat either alone.

How we run Microsoft Ads at Caffeinate

We are an AI-first agency, and the same discipline we apply to Google applies here. We do not bolt on Microsoft Ads as an afterthought and let an old import drift. We decide whether the channel actually suits your audience first, because spending on it when your buyers are young and mobile-first is just waste with extra steps.

When it does fit, we import sensibly, then tune for the Microsoft audience rather than mirroring Google blindly: separate budgets, reworked negatives, and LinkedIn profile targeting where the B2B case is there. A senior human reviews the work and ships it. We will also tell you plainly when Microsoft Ads is not worth your time, because a channel that does not match your customers is not a saving, it is a slow leak. Run as part of a wider plan, our Microsoft Ads management sits alongside our Google Ads management as one strategy, not two silos.

Frequently asked questions

Is Microsoft Ads the same as Bing Ads?

Yes. Microsoft Ads is the current name for what used to be called Bing Ads. Microsoft renamed the platform to Microsoft Advertising, but it is the same product, and your ads still appear on Bing along with the rest of the Microsoft Search Network. If you see bing ads, microsoft advertising or bing advertising, they all mean this one platform.

Are Microsoft Ads cheaper than Google Ads?

Cost per click is frequently lower on Microsoft Ads because fewer advertisers compete in the auction. That does not guarantee a cheaper customer, only a cheaper click, so judge it on cost per enquiry. For many B2B and professional-services accounts, the clicks are both cheaper and high quality, which is the best of both.

Should I use Microsoft Ads instead of Google Ads?

For most businesses, no. Google has far more search volume, so it should carry the bulk of your search budget. Microsoft Ads works best as a complement that adds cheaper, high-quality clicks from an older, more professional audience. Run both together rather than choosing one over the other.

Can I import my Google Ads campaigns into Microsoft Ads?

Yes, and it is straightforward. Microsoft Ads lets you import your Google Ads account directly, bringing across campaigns, keywords and ads, either as a one-off or on a schedule that keeps them in sync. Just remember to tune the imported campaigns for the Microsoft audience instead of leaving them as an exact copy of your Google setup.

Is Microsoft Ads good for B2B?

It is one of the best search channels for B2B. The audience skews towards desktop and workplace users on Windows and Edge, and you can layer on LinkedIn profile targeting by company, industry and job function. That lets you reach decision-makers directly, which is something Google Ads cannot match.

Talk to us about Microsoft Ads

If your buyers are professional, considered or B2B, Microsoft Ads is one of the most overlooked ways to get more enquiries from the same budget. We run it from Perth for businesses across Australia, honestly, and only when it actually fits your audience. Have a look at our Microsoft Ads management and our Google Ads management, then get in touch and we will tell you whether the cheaper clicks are worth chasing for your business.