Bing Ads vs Google Ads 2017: Which Platform Offers Better ROI for U.S. Marketers?

The Battle for Advertising Dominance: Bing Ads vs Google Ads in 2017

In a year when digital advertising revenue surpassed **$83 billion**, it became more crucial than ever for American marketers to identify the most cost-effective platform. **Bing Ads** and **Google Ads** remained at the forefront of the market, yet their effectiveness was anything but uniform across industries and demographics.

• Both platforms commanded a distinct audience profile,
• Bid costs diverged sharply, especially within saturated niches,
• User behavior varied notably based on age and geographic distribution.

Metric	Google Ads	Bing Ads
Average CPC	$2.69 (search)	$1.95 (search)
Click-Through Rate (CTR)	1.91% (search)	2.25% (search)
Monthly Users (Global Reach)	>90%	≈33%
ROI Benchmarks (avg across all verticals)	$2–4 return per $1 spent	$2.80–5 return per $1 spent

Preliminary studies and performance comparisons drawn from SEM analytics tools painted an increasingly nuanced portrait—one that urged decision-makers not only to consider reach, but also user intent, keyword saturation, and post-click behavioral patterns.

Who Was On Which Platform?

In early 2017, Google still held over 85% market share worldwide in the search sector, while Bing lagged significantly behind—but perhaps deceptively so. Bing had been gaining traction among users aged **over 35** with considerable disposable income. Microsoft’s ecosystem advantage (LinkedIn integration, Office suite presence) also meant deeper insights could be mined, potentially yielding better-targeted campaigns for certain B2B or lifestyle-driven product categories.

To ignore demographic distinctions is to risk misaligning campaign objectives and customer acquisition strategies, especially during the critical Q4 holiday shopping months—when many businesses saw peak profitability swings between channels.

Bid Pricing Models and Ad Placement Performance

For U.S.-centric advertisers focused purely on efficiency and conversion tracking, there was little room to deny the **cost advantages inherent to the Bing Ads platform**—especially in less commoditized sectors like legal services, industrial supplies, and real estate listings.

Here's a breakdown comparing average ad positioning results and the associated Cost-per-Mille (CPM):

• Top position cost differential as high as 25%
• First-page placement bids showed doubling returns on quality score improvements
• Display ads on Bing Network under-index compared to GDN, indicating mixed brand visibility outcomes.

Furthermore, the integration between Microsoft products—such as Excel-linked performance tracking, Dynamics CRM compatibility—provided added layers of automation for analysts without third-party APIs, a boon for SMB marketers managing limited budgets.

Bid strategies mattered even more. Automated rules and dynamic targeting, while present on both engines, yielded better time-to-conversion reduction curves within Microsoft's Ad Center environment—a trend some researchers chalked up to a less mature but growing algorithmic refinement process.

User Behavior: Intent Signal Discrepancies Between Search Engines

Marketers who looked beyond impressions began discovering subtle clues hidden beneath engagement numbers—most pertinently related to "user buying intent". Google's dominance translated into stronger short-tail, commercial search query capture (e.g., “cheap hotel in Miami" or “iPhone 8 repair service"), while longer, informational queries thrived better within Bing Ads placements—particularly in health or academic searches linked via Cortana or Outlook clients.

Which Vertical Markets Thrived With Either Platform?

Sector specialization played a significant role in choosing the ideal engine:

Edu & Career: Google outperformed consistently, owing largely to organic SEO saturation alongside well-established pathways through the Chrome-dominated academic ecosystem.
Fashion/Beauty (Especially Mid-Tier Brands): Better success on Bing, attributed again to affluent, female-dominated audiences spending actively on mid-market apparel brands and premium cosmetics.
Real Estate and Legal Aid: Surpassed expectations via Microsoft Advertising’s targeting enhancements around homeowner status indicators (property records, MSFT-linked tax filings in specific ZIP code clusters).

Let us now explore which platforms proved optimal per category through an illustrative table reflecting median click-to-sale conversion ratios:

Industry	Google Conversions / $1K Spend	Bing Conversion Index ($0-$5 CPA bands*)
Holidays/Retail	4.7*	7.3* (+125% gain vs 2016 avg)
Careers/Resume Help	11.3	4.1**
Legal (Divorce/DUI Services)	14.6 (Q2 surge)	8.7
Dating Apps	44.1 (#2 performer)	9.1 (declined slightly YoY')

(* = Data anonymized; figures rounded up based on industry averages from DoubleVerify, Marin Software.)

These variations highlight the potential benefit of diversification—running dual-campaign setups allowed brands to capture incremental traffic without over-allocating resources disproportionately across networks, particularly during peak advertising seasons where supply outweighs demand in traditional bidding ecosystems.

Final Verdict: Making a Choice That Works

Despite having broader penetration capabilities and superior AI integration features via its expanded machine learning backend infrastructure, the answer remains fluid based upon the nature of your offer, geographic priority, and historical buyer profiling data available. The best course involves running simultaneous test campaigns with mirrored creatives but channel-differentiated copy elements over at least a three-week cycle before drawing conclusions.

The key takeaways can be summed up briefly:

1. Bing delivered bargain-priced clicks in low-volume, intent-heavy environments
2. For high-competition branding plays or mass awareness pushes—nobody rivals Alphabet’s scale
3. Budget-limited advertisers benefitted from Bing’s streamlined approval flows (typically < 4 hours for image/video ad serving readiness vs 1+ day minimum in Google systems).

If Your Goals Are …	Choose Platform:
Brand Recognition Growth	Google
Retro-Home Product Marketing (e.g., watches, kitchenware)	Bing
Data-driven Segmented Outreach Across Age Groups (24+	Multichannel Strategy

In closing, any serious consideration toward allocating advertising budgets solely along conventional wisdom would fall short in 2017—and arguably continues to do so in later iterations of the search ecosystem evolution. By combining analytical precision and creative agility across two of history's most formidable digital storefronts, forward-looking businesses were positioned not just to compete but thrive.