Google Ads or Microsoft Advertising: which suits you?

When planning your search advertising budget, you have to decide whether all of it goes to Google or some of it to Microsoft Advertising, formerly Bing Ads. The answer depends less on the platform than on your business: who your customers are, which device they search on and which sales generate margin.

Google offers the greatest reach and highly advanced automation, for example through Performance Max. Microsoft Advertising reaches people at work and, with LinkedIn data, offers something Google can’t. In this article, we compare the two platforms and show when each one pays off.

Both platforms reach searchers in different ways

Google Ads covers most searches and many other channels besides

Google Ads is synonymous with search engine advertising. People who google usually have a clear intent, and that intent is exactly what makes search ads so effective. But Google’s reach goes far beyond search.

• Reach: Google Search, YouTube, Google Maps, Gmail, Google Play and the Display Network with its partner sites.
• Focus: automation. Campaign types such as Performance Max allocate bids and ads across all these channels.

Microsoft Advertising reaches searchers on Bing and its partners

Microsoft Advertising has evolved with AI search in Copilot and its link to LinkedIn.

• Reach: search ads appear on Bing, Yahoo and AOL, as well as partner search engines such as DuckDuckGo and Ecosia, popular with privacy- and environmentally conscious users.
• Focus: desktop users, professional decision-makers and Microsoft’s workplace ecosystem of Windows, Edge and Outlook.

On desktop, Microsoft reaches a meaningful share of your customers

How big that reach really is depends heavily on the device. Statcounter’s figures for Germany in September 2026 make this clear:

On smartphones, Google is the only game in town. If you sell products people mainly search for on mobile, such as fashion, local services or consumer electronics, Google gets you in front of almost every searcher. But where everyone advertises, competition for the top spots is also fiercest.

Desktop is a different story. Many offices run on Windows, Bing is the default search engine in the Edge browser, and many users never change it. So Microsoft Advertising often reaches people while they are at work. If you sell software, office equipment, consulting or industrial goods, that is where you meet decision-makers in a professional context.

The two platforms reach different audiences

Google reaches almost all searchers

• Users of all ages and from all walks of life.
• Mostly mobile.
• Lots of short, spontaneous everyday searches.

Microsoft mainly reaches desktop searchers

• A large share of searches happen at work.
• Usage is mostly on desktop.
• For offers with long decision cycles, such as B2B, financial products or high-value goods, this audience can be especially valuable, even if the volume is smaller.

Only your own numbers will tell you whether that holds true for your business.

Lower CPCs only matter if they raise your margin per sale

On Google, competition sets the price

Because so many companies advertise on Google, the auction pushes up costs per click (CPC). In competitive industries such as insurance or legal services, high CPCs are the norm. Daily budgets cap spend, but if you want to be visible, you have to pay the going rate.

On Microsoft, there are fewer competitors and less search volume

Fewer competitors often mean lower CPCs, so the same budget buys more clicks. But search volume is limited: in many accounts, the planned budget can’t even be spent because too few people are searching.

Compare the cost per sale with the contribution margin the sale generates. A low CPC only helps if visitors also buy or inquire. That is why we evaluate both platforms by profit contribution per euro of ad budget.

Both platforms are betting on AI-powered formats

Google is betting on Performance Max: you supply images, videos, copy and logos plus a goal, such as inquiries. The AI combines these elements and serves them wherever a conversion is most likely, whether on YouTube, in Gmail or in search. The upside is broad reach with little effort. The downside: you only get limited visibility into where an ad actually ran.

Microsoft also offers Performance Max campaigns, plus Multimedia Ads, large image ads in the search results. And then there is Copilot: Microsoft also serves ads within its AI assistant’s answers.

Google is bringing ads into AI search too: in Germany, they currently appear above or below AI Overviews, and Google is testing new formats directly in AI Mode in the US. Our article on AI Mode for advertisers describes how advertising is changing there. On both platforms, if you want to advertise in AI answers, you need strong ad copy, images and product data, because that is what the systems build the ads from.

LinkedIn data lets Microsoft focus your bids on B2B decision-makers

For B2B companies, this is the biggest difference. Microsoft owns LinkedIn, and according to Microsoft, Microsoft Advertising is the only ad platform besides LinkedIn itself that uses LinkedIn profile data for targeting. Options include:

• Company, for example specific firms you want to win as customers,
• Industry, for example finance or mechanical engineering,
• Job function, for example purchasing, marketing or HR.

The profile data is available for Search, Dynamic Search Ads, Shopping, Audience and Performance Max campaigns. The key is how it works: it is used for bid adjustments and does not restrict who sees your ads. If you sell HR software, you can bid higher for searchers in HR roles, but your ad can still show to other users searching for “HR software”.

That way, more of your budget goes to the clicks that are valuable to your business. Google does not offer this kind of professional data in search.

Moving your Google campaigns to Microsoft takes just a few steps

Many marketing leads balk at the effort of managing yet another platform. Microsoft makes it easy to get started.

Importing from Google Ads

There is no need to rebuild your campaigns. The import tool brings over campaigns, keywords, ads and bids from Google Ads. A scheduled import syncs changes from Google Ads at regular intervals. Be careful, though: the import can also overwrite budgets and settings you deliberately set differently in Microsoft Advertising.

The interface

The Microsoft Advertising interface closely resembles Google Ads. If you know Google Ads, you will find your way around quickly.

One tip for reporting: tag your Microsoft campaigns cleanly so you can compare both platforms side by side in GA4. Our article on campaign tracking with Google Analytics shows how.

How to decide which role each platform plays

Prioritize Google Ads if

• you sell to consumers, for example fashion, food or lifestyle products,
• you need a lot of volume to grow,
• local visibility matters, for example through ads in Google Maps,
• your customers mostly search on smartphones.

Microsoft Advertising is worth testing if

• you are in B2B and can make use of LinkedIn data,
• your customers search at work and on desktop,
• your cost per sale in Google Ads is high and you want additional sales at a lower cost,
• you serve a niche with little competition on Bing.

Conclusion: Each platform has to earn its budget through profit

“Google or Microsoft?” is usually the wrong question. For many companies, the answer is both, with clearly defined roles. Google Ads delivers reach and volume. Microsoft Advertising often adds incremental sales and, in B2B, particularly valuable contacts.

Our recommendation: start with Google Ads, gather data and build profitable campaigns. Once they are running at a profit, import them into Microsoft Advertising and test them there with a fixed budget. Then let the numbers decide. No channel’s budget is guaranteed, not even Google Ads’: every euro goes where it contributes most to profit. For more platforms beyond Google, see our article on the best Google Ads alternatives.