What 73 Advertisers Taught Us About Microsoft Ads

This week we published what 11 car dealers taught us about Microsoft Ads: the same kind of search click cost 46% less on Microsoft than on Google. The first question I got afterward was whether that’s just a car dealer thing.

So we ran the same analysis across every SmartSites client that runs search on both platforms. The answer: it’s not a dealer thing. Across 73 advertisers in nine industries, a Microsoft search click cost 47% less than a Google search click.

How we compared them

• Who: we checked every active SmartSites PPC client. 77 ran meaningful search campaigns on both Microsoft Ads and Google Ads (at least $500 of Microsoft search spend in the year). We dropped four: one whose Microsoft data was incomplete, one whose Microsoft “search” campaigns were really inventory ads, and two with too little overlap between the platforms. That left 73.
• When: October 1, 2025 through September 30, 2026.
• What: search campaigns only, on both sides. Shopping, Performance Max, display and audience campaigns, connected TV and inventory/vehicle listing ads are left out on both platforms.
• Matched quarters: plenty of advertisers didn’t run both platforms all year, so we only compared quarters in which an advertiser ran search on both. That gave us 230 advertiser-quarters and about 4.5 million clicks.

What we found

• 47% cheaper on average. $1.54 a click on Microsoft vs. $2.93 on Google.
• Cheaper for almost everyone. 64 of 73 advertisers paid less per click on Microsoft. The median advertiser saved 59%, and the middle half of advertisers saved between 25% and 71%.
• Cheaper almost every quarter. Microsoft was the cheaper click in 193 of 230 advertiser-quarters, and the gap held at 44% to 51% in every quarter.
• More clicks for the money. Microsoft took 17% of these advertisers’ search spend and delivered 29% of their search clicks.

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Every industry saw it

Because each advertiser is compared with itself, industry mix doesn’t skew this. Microsoft came out cheaper in every industry group, though by different amounts:

The pattern is intuitive: the more expensive the Google auction, the bigger the Microsoft discount. Home services, where the typical Google click cost more than $10, saw the biggest gap. Retail and ecommerce, where Google search clicks were already relatively cheap, saw the smallest.

Non-brand is where the savings are

On non-brand searches (people looking for a product or service, not your company by name), Microsoft clicks cost $1.57 vs. $3.56 on Google, 56% less. Brand searches were cheaper too, but by less: $1.56 vs. $2.09, or 25%. That makes sense. Brand clicks are cheap everywhere, because there’s little competition for your own name. Non-brand keywords are where the Google auction gets crowded, and where Microsoft’s thinner competition pays off most.

Where Microsoft wasn’t cheaper

Nine of the 73 advertisers paid more per click on Microsoft. Four of them were already paying under 60 cents a click on Google, mostly ecommerce and brand-heavy accounts where there wasn’t much of a Google premium to undercut. When we grouped advertisers by what they paid on Google, the pattern was clear:

Microsoft isn’t automatically cheaper for every account. It’s cheaper where the Google auction is expensive, and the more you pay Google per click, the more Microsoft is likely to save you.

Why Microsoft is cheaper

Mostly, it’s competition. Search ads are an auction, and far fewer advertisers bid on Microsoft. Most businesses and their agencies put their whole search budget into Google, so the same keyword costs less on Microsoft.

The audience is different, too. Microsoft search reaches people on Bing, the Edge browser and Windows defaults, and Bing also powers Copilot. Microsoft Advertising, citing Comscore, says 38 million U.S. users on its network aren’t on Google (December 2024 data).

And most advertisers are leaving room on the table. Across these accounts, Microsoft search campaigns lost only about 4% of eligible impressions to budget (vs. 16% on Google) and about 58% to ad rank. In other words, growing Microsoft volume is mostly a matter of bidding up, not just raising budgets.

What about cost per lead?

Here’s the honest part. Conversion tracking isn’t set up the same way on both platforms for many advertisers (Microsoft Ads doesn’t connect natively to GA4 the way Google Ads does), so a clean lead-to-lead comparison across 73 accounts isn’t possible.

Our working assumption is that a shopper who searches the same thing and clicks the same ad converts at a similar rate whichever search engine they used. Assuming similar conversion rates, a click that costs about half as much means a lead that costs about half as much. That’s an assumption, not a measured result, which is why we set up Microsoft conversion tracking from day one.

What this means for advertisers

Microsoft isn’t a replacement for Google. In this sample it delivered under a third of combined search clicks, and Google still carries the volume. What Microsoft does is extend your search reach at a much lower cost. If you’re not running it, you’re likely paying Google prices for clicks you could be buying for less.

1. Import your Google Search campaigns into Microsoft Ads instead of building from scratch.
2. Lead with non-brand. That’s where the gap was biggest in our data. Brand campaigns are worth running, but they won’t show you the real savings.
3. Set up conversion goals on day one. Track calls, forms and sales with Microsoft’s UET tag so you can judge it on cost per lead, not just cost per click.
4. Keep the network tight. Run on Microsoft sites and select traffic rather than the full search partner network.
5. Plan to raise bids, not just budgets. Most lost impressions were lost to ad rank, not budget.

Our recommendation is a 90-day test at 10% to 20% of your Google Search budget, then scale based on cost per lead.

If you want to see what Microsoft Ads could look like for your business, reach out to your SmartSites strategist or contact us. We’ll build a plan around your market and your budget.

About the data

• Sample: 73 advertisers SmartSites manages that ran search campaigns on both Microsoft Ads and Google Ads, out of every active SmartSites PPC client. It’s a convenience sample from one agency, not an industry benchmark. Industries are SmartSites’ own client classifications; legal, healthcare and education (8 advertisers) are grouped together because each is small.
• Dates: October 1, 2025 to September 30, 2026, compared quarter by quarter. A quarter counts only if the advertiser spent at least $100 and got at least 30 clicks on each platform that quarter.
• Scope: Microsoft search campaigns vs. Google Search campaigns. Shopping, Performance Max, display/audience, connected TV and inventory/vehicle listing campaigns are excluded on both platforms. Brand vs. non-brand is based on campaign names.
• Averages: the spend-weighted average is total cost divided by total clicks across all matched advertiser-quarters. Medians compare each advertiser with itself, so one very large account can’t drive the result. Excluding the three largest accounts, the spend-weighted gap was 45%.
• Exclusions: four of 77 eligible advertisers were left out: one with incomplete Microsoft data in our reporting system, one whose Microsoft campaigns were inventory ads, and two with too little overlap between the two platforms.
• Competition: lower competition is a big part of the price gap, so the advantage may narrow as an advertiser scales Microsoft spend.
• Conversions: lead costs above are estimated from cost per click, assuming similar conversion rates. They are not measured conversion data.
• Dataset: the anonymized advertiser-level table (industry, matched quarters, Microsoft and Google CPC) is published on alexmelen.com.