Using Microsoft Shopping Ads to Compete on Cost-Per-Click

If you’re running product ads and putting everything into Google Shopping, you’re probably paying more per click than you need to. Microsoft Shopping Ads give you access to the same kind of visual product listings, with images, pricing and direct links to your site, but through a platform where PPC budgets tend to stretch further. The audience across Bing, MSN and Microsoft’s partner network skews professional and high-intent, which is exactly the kind of traffic worth paying for.

What tends to happen is that businesses overlook Microsoft because the search volume is smaller. That’s fair enough on the surface. But smaller volume doesn’t mean lower value, and the cost-per-click savings can be substantial once you factor in the reduced competition.

Microsoft’s auction environment has less bidding pressure, so you’re not fighting the same wars you’d face on Google. The audience is desktop-heavy during business hours, which suits B2B brands and anyone selling products that need proper consideration before a purchase decision. In practice, that means fewer wasted clicks and more meaningful engagement per pound spent.

Why Microsoft Shopping Delivers Lower CPCs

So why are the clicks actually cheaper? It comes down to how the platform is structured and who’s using it. There are real, repeatable reasons the cost-per-click on Microsoft Shopping sits below Google, and they’re not going away any time soon.

People searching on Bing and MSN aren’t there by accident. They tend to be professionals, enterprise decision-makers, or people in demographics that prioritise functionality over trends. What you’ll find is that these users are often further along in their buying journey when they interact with product listings, which means the traffic you do get converts at a higher rate.

Reduced Auction Competition

The bidding model works the same way as Google, auction-based with advertisers competing for placement. The difference is that far fewer advertisers are actually in the room. Most ecommerce brands put all their attention on Google Shopping and don’t give Microsoft a second thought, which leaves a lot of product placements going for less than they’re worth.

Fewer competitors means less bidding pressure, reducing click costs without compromising visibility. This is particularly valuable in niche or high-value categories where margins matter most.

This is where it gets interesting for smaller advertisers. You can realistically compete with bigger retailers here because you’re not being priced out of every auction. Lower CPCs mean you either get more clicks for the same budget, or you maintain your current traffic levels while spending less. At a time when paid search costs keep climbing on Google, that’s a rare position to be in.

The advantage compounds, too. Businesses that commit to Microsoft Shopping early tend to build up quality scores and feed history that keep their costs low even as more competitors eventually arrive on the platform.

Desktop and Professional User Behaviour

There’s a noticeable pattern with Microsoft Shopping traffic. It’s heavily desktop-based and concentrated during working hours, which tells you something about who’s searching. These are people sitting at desks with time to properly research, compare options and follow through on a purchase. If you’re selling to businesses or to anyone making a considered buying decision, that behaviour works in your favour.

What this means in practice is that you’re naturally filtering out the casual, scroll-happy mobile users who might click but rarely buy. The traffic you do pay for is more qualified, closer to a purchase decision, and worth more per click. Even though the volumes are lower than Google, you don’t need as many clicks when the ones you get are converting at a better rate.

If your products are complex, high-ticket or business-focused, this audience profile is exactly what you want. You’re paying for engagement that actually leads to a sale, not just inflating your click count.

Less Aggressive Competitor Bidding

A lot of advertisers still treat Microsoft as a secondary channel, if they bother with it at all. The bidding landscape reflects that. You’ll see more manual and semi-automated bidding here compared to Google, where agencies and automated tools have pushed prices up aggressively over the years.

The practical result? You’re far less likely to end up in a bidding war over product placements. Your costs stay more predictable, which matters when you’re working with tight margins or managing a broad product catalogue where a few pence per click adds up quickly.

Yes, competition on Microsoft is growing as more businesses catch on. But it’s still significantly calmer than Google Shopping. You can achieve consistent placements and keep your average cost-per-click in check without giving up visibility. That kind of stability makes it much easier to plan budgets with confidence rather than guessing what next month’s CPCs will look like.

Worth noting: Microsoft’s integration with LinkedIn’s professional data gives B2B sellers an extra layer of targeting that simply doesn’t exist on Google. Better audience qualification means fewer wasted clicks and a stronger return on every pound you put in.

Platform Incentives and Support

One thing that catches people off guard is how much Microsoft actively incentivises new advertisers. They regularly offer promotional credits and onboarding support for businesses moving into Shopping campaigns, which takes a lot of the risk out of testing the platform. You’re essentially getting free data on whether it works for your products.

The account management side is noticeably better for small and mid-sized businesses, too. You’ll often get a named contact who actually understands your account, rather than being funnelled through a generic support queue. WordPress development teams in particular know how much of a difference good support makes when you’re scaling marketing alongside technical builds.

Microsoft also rewards advertisers who maintain high-quality product feeds with better ad placements, which naturally brings CPCs down over time. And if you’re already running Google Shopping, the import tools in Merchant Centre make the transition straightforward. You won’t be rebuilding everything from scratch.

Campaign Optimisation for Better ROI

Getting started with Microsoft Shopping Ads isn’t complicated, but running them well over time takes active work. The platform rewards you for having a clean campaign structure, accurate product data and a consistent eye on performance. Leave things on autopilot and you’ll miss opportunities that more attentive advertisers will pick up.

Because your CPCs are already lower and the user quality is higher, the focus shifts away from chasing raw traffic numbers. It becomes about turning those qualified clicks into actual conversions. Some of the tactics will be familiar if you’ve run Google Shopping before, but Microsoft’s ecosystem has its own quirks worth understanding.

Structure by Product Category

The best way to keep control of your Shopping campaigns is to organise them by product category. Set up separate ad groups for different ranges, whether that’s office furniture, diagnostic equipment, accessories, or whatever makes sense for your catalogue. This gives you the ability to set individual bids, adjust budgets based on product value, and see clearly what’s performing and what isn’t.

When products are grouped sensibly, your reporting becomes much easier to read. You’ll quickly spot which ranges are driving conversions, which ones are burning through budget without results, and where there might be promotion opportunities you haven’t explored. Throwing everything into a single campaign might seem simpler, but it makes optimisation harder and costs you visibility.

Category-based structure supports better decision-making and ensures highest-value items receive adequate exposure while simplifying testing across different bidding strategies.

If you’re selling into B2B markets or managing a complex catalogue with hundreds of SKUs, this category-based approach gives you room to optimise individual product groups without having to tear apart your entire campaign structure every time something changes.

Manual CPC for Greater Control

You’ve got both automated and manual bidding options in Microsoft Ads, but for Shopping campaigns where margins vary across products, manual CPC tends to give you better control. Starting with manual bids lets you build up an understanding of what’s actually happening before handing anything over to an algorithm.

The logic is straightforward. Bid higher on your high-margin or best-selling items. Pull back spend on the lower-value products that aren’t earning their keep. This kind of granular control is particularly useful when you’re managing a wide SKU range or trying to serve both B2B and B2C audiences from the same catalogue.

Once you’ve gathered enough conversion data, you can start testing automated bidding and let the system optimise around what’s already working. But early on, manual bidding keeps things transparent. You know exactly why each product is bidding at the level it is, rather than trusting an algorithm that doesn’t yet have enough information to make good decisions.

In our experience, manual CPC is also the safest way to protect your budget while you’re scaling up. It prevents overspending on products that aren’t converting and gives you a clear picture of where your money is actually going.

Optimise Product Titles for Search Intent

Your product titles have a bigger influence on Shopping Ad performance than most advertisers realise. Microsoft uses them to match your listings with what people are actually searching for, so the title needs to reflect how buyers think, not your internal product naming convention.

Think about it from the searcher’s perspective. “A3 Colour Laser Printer for Medical Offices” tells them exactly what they’re getting. “Model X3200” tells them nothing. Include the brand, model, size, and use case wherever possible. It makes the difference between your ad appearing for the right query or being invisible.

For B2B and niche sectors, tailoring titles to match buyer intent becomes even more important. A procurement manager searching for “laboratory centrifuge 5000 RPM” isn’t going to click on a generic listing. Keep your title formats consistent across similar products, too, as it helps with reporting and makes performance tracking across product groups much simpler.

WooCommerce-based stores can automate a lot of this through feed management tools that pull directly from your structured product data, so you’re not manually updating hundreds of titles.

Exclude Unprofitable Search Terms

Just like standard search campaigns, Shopping Ads will attract clicks from people who were never going to buy. Irrelevant queries eat into your budget without giving anything back, and the only way to catch them is by reviewing your search term reports regularly. It’s not glamorous work, but it’s some of the most impactful optimisation you can do.

When you spot products appearing for vague, unrelated or overly broad searches, add those terms as negatives. This keeps your budget focused on the high-intent users who are actually in the market for what you sell, rather than draining spend on people browsing out of curiosity.

• Use exact match negatives to prevent specific mismatches
• Review search terms weekly in B2B settings where every click counts
• Focus on preserving budget for qualified traffic
• Monitor brand versus generic search performance

Over time, a clean search term list has a compounding effect. Your efficiency improves, your conversion rates climb, and your cost-per-click stays as low as the platform allows. It’s one of those jobs that takes ten minutes a week but saves you real money month after month.

Product Feed and Merchant Centre Excellence

No matter how well your campaigns are structured, they won’t perform if your product feed is poor. The feed is what determines which searches your ads appear for, how relevant your listings look, and whether your products even get approved in the first place. Getting this right isn’t optional.

If you’ve already built a feed for Google Shopping, the good news is that Microsoft’s Merchant Centre works in a similar way. You can import your existing data without starting from zero, though there are some Microsoft-specific optimisations worth making once you’re set up.

Maintain Accurate, Current Data

Everything starts with accuracy. Your pricing, stock availability, titles and descriptions all need to reflect what’s actually on your site right now, not what was there last week. If a customer clicks through and finds different information on the landing page, you’ve not only wasted the click cost but risked having your products disapproved or your account flagged.

Automated feed syncing tools are worth the investment here. They keep your Merchant Centre data aligned with your ecommerce platform in real time, so you’re not manually chasing updates every time a price changes or a product goes out of stock.

B2B brands with complex pricing need to pay particular attention to this. If you offer price breaks, trade discounts or VAT-inclusive pricing, make sure those display clearly and format correctly in the feed. Regular audits help catch discontinued items and outdated information before they cause problems.

Microsoft tends to be less forgiving than some platforms when it comes to data inconsistencies. Keeping your feeds clean isn’t just best practice, it directly affects how many of your products are eligible to show and how often they appear for the right searches.

Professional Product Photography

Your product images are doing a lot of the selling before anyone even clicks. People make snap judgments about quality, trustworthiness and whether a product is right for them based on the photo alone. Clean, high-resolution images on neutral backgrounds give your listings the best chance of earning that click.

Graphic design standards matter more than you might expect here. Microsoft won’t allow watermarks, logos or promotional overlays on product images, and getting this wrong leads to disapprovals. It’s worth reviewing your image library against their guidelines before uploading.

For B2B products, clarity beats style every time. Show the product in a way that’s immediately recognisable and relevant to a professional buyer. If you’re selling products in multiple sizes or colours, each variation needs its own accurate swatch image and identifier so buyers can see exactly what they’re getting.

Consistent, professional imagery across your entire feed signals credibility. It lifts your click-through rates and gives users more confidence when they’re making a purchase decision, which is exactly the kind of signal that helps Shopping Ads perform well over time.

Complete Product Attributes

Microsoft Merchant Centre lets you provide a wide range of product attributes, including brand, GTIN, MPN, size, colour, condition and product type. Each field you fill in gives Microsoft more information to work with when deciding which searches to show your ads for, so leaving them blank is leaving performance on the table.

The more complete your attributes are, the better the platform can match your listings with relevant queries. If you’re selling products with multiple variants, structured data helps differentiate between them and improves filtering for buyers who know exactly what they’re looking for.

Lab equipment specifications like voltage, size or compatibility improve visibility for specific searches. Detailed attributes increase likelihood of ads appearing in high-intent queries.

The pattern we see is that advertisers with more complete feeds consistently generate higher-quality traffic. Microsoft prioritises listings with strong data quality in its ranking, so the effort you put into detailed attributes pays back through better exposure and stronger campaign performance overall.

B2B and High-Value Product Strategy

Selling to businesses or handling high-ticket products is a different game entirely from B2C retail. Your sales cycles are longer, there are usually multiple people involved in the decision, and the value of each lead is significantly higher. All of that changes how you should approach Shopping Ads.

Microsoft Shopping gives you cost-effective visibility for these products, but you can’t just run the same strategy you’d use for consumer goods and expect results. The approach needs to reflect how professional buyers actually research, compare and purchase.

Value Over Volume Focus

When you’re selling B2B or high-ticket products, chasing click volume is the wrong objective. What you need is the right people seeing the right products. Structure your Shopping campaigns around your highest-margin items, the products with strongest demand, or the ones that carry the most strategic value for your business.

Custom labels are useful here for flagging priority SKUs so you can allocate higher bids to them. There’s no point spending the same amount promoting a low-value accessory as you would a high-margin piece of equipment, unless that accessory reliably leads to bigger purchases down the line. With Microsoft’s lower CPCs, you have the flexibility to be selective about where your money goes without pricing yourself out of visibility.

It’s also worth remembering that not every Shopping Ad needs to drive a direct purchase. For services, software or specialist equipment, the goal might be getting someone to an enquiry form or a demo request. Shopping Ads still work well for this because they showcase the product visually, even if the actual transaction happens offline or through a sales conversation.

B2B Shopping campaigns should measure success by lead quality and pipeline value, not raw click volume. A single high-value enquiry from the right procurement manager can justify weeks of ad spend that consumer metrics would label as underperforming.

Business-Focused Product Data

The product details that matter to a business buyer are different from what a consumer looks for. Where a consumer might care about colour and delivery speed, a procurement manager wants to know about bulk pricing, specification sheets, regulatory approvals and whether the product integrates with their existing systems.

You can use structured fields and product descriptions to communicate trade discounts or B2B bundle pricing. Microsoft Shopping doesn’t show the full description text in the ad itself, but those relevance signals still feed into the platform’s matching and quality algorithms. So the detail you put in behind the scenes affects where and how often your ads appear.

Business buyers compare features before they compare prices. If your feed reflects the kinds of decision factors that matter in procurement, like operational fit, compliance requirements and total cost of ownership, you’ll attract more qualified clicks and set clearer expectations before anyone lands on your site.

Optimised B2B Landing Pages

Once someone clicks your Shopping Ad, the landing page has to do its job. For B2B, that means going well beyond a simple “add to basket” button. Landing page optimisation for professional buyers needs to support enquiries, specification reviews and genuine buying conversations where someone might need to involve colleagues before committing.

• Clear pricing information with VAT clarity and lead times
• Downloadable PDFs, technical specifications or integration guides
• Professional contact forms suited to business users
• Live chat and call-back features where appropriate

You can drive the most qualified traffic in the world through Microsoft Ads, but if the landing experience doesn’t meet the expectations of a professional buyer, you’ll lose them. When the page is set up properly for B2B conversion, Shopping Ads become one of the most valuable entry points your business development team has.

Lead Generation Through Shopping

Here’s something a lot of advertisers miss: Shopping campaigns don’t have to end in a direct sale. If you’re selling B2B products or high-value services, you can use Shopping Ads to promote downloadable brochures, pricing guides or demo requests instead. The visual format still works brilliantly for catching attention, even when the conversion you’re after is softer than a purchase.

Landing pages built around these softer CTAs benefit from the high click-through rates that Shopping Ads naturally generate, without trying to force a purchase that doesn’t match how your buyers actually behave. Someone researching laboratory equipment at 10am on a Tuesday isn’t going to click “buy now” on a first visit, but they might well download a specification guide.

To measure whether this approach is actually working, set up conversion tracking through Microsoft Ads’ offline conversion import or connect your CRM so leads are attributed back to the Shopping campaign that generated them. This is particularly important for complex solutions where the sale involves custom quotes, installation planning or regulatory sign-off.

Think of Shopping Ads as the visual hook that gets someone through the door. What happens after they land is where the real value sits. For businesses where traditional ecommerce metrics like add-to-cart rates and direct purchases don’t tell the full story, treating Shopping Ads as a lead generation channel is often the smarter play, and one that Microsoft’s platform is well suited to support.