Paid Search
Microsoft Ads vs. Google Ads | Where to Allocate Your Search Budget
Microsoft Ads clicks cost a median $3.32 against $4.22 on Google. A look at where the smaller search network earns its place and how much budget to give it.
BenchMarketing editorial team Updated October 2, 2026 3 min readShare
Google handles most searches, so it gets most search budgets. Microsoft Advertising, which serves ads on Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo's ads and Microsoft's own products, is smaller but often cheaper, and its audience is different enough to matter.
How the numbers compare
| Metric | Google Ads | Microsoft Ads |
|---|---|---|
| CTR | 6.11% | 2.83% |
| CPC | $4.22 | $3.32 |
| Conversion rate | 7.04% | 4.12% |
| Cost per conversion | $53.52 | $41.44 |
Microsoft's lower cost per click and cost per conversion are the main reasons to run it. Its volume is smaller, so it complements Google rather than replacing it.
Microsoft Ads by industry
| Industry | Median CTR | Middle half of accounts |
|---|---|---|
| Home Services | 3.84% | 2.5% to 6.2% |
| Legal | 3.52% | 2.2% to 5.7% |
| Healthcare | 3.10% | 1.9% to 5.0% |
| Financial Services | 2.72% | 1.6% to 4.4% |
| Ecommerce | 2.48% | 1.4% to 4.0% |
| Education | 3.21% | 1.9% to 5.2% |
| Real Estate | 3.42% | 2.1% to 5.5% |
| SaaS | 1.96% | 1.0% to 3.2% |
| Automotive | 3.68% | 2.3% to 5.9% |
Who you reach
Microsoft's search traffic comes heavily from desktop and from Windows and Edge defaults, which tilts it toward office workers and older searchers. That makes it worth more than its share of searches suggests for B2B, financial services and considered purchases, and worth less for mobile-first consumer products.
Microsoft also lets you layer LinkedIn profile targeting onto search campaigns: company, industry and job function. Google has nothing equivalent.
How much budget to give it
- Import your Google campaigns. Microsoft Advertising can import campaigns, keywords and ads directly, so the setup cost is low.
- Start with your best-performing search campaigns only. Brand terms and high-intent non-brand terms usually carry over well.
- Set bids independently after the import. Competition differs, and imported Google bids are often too high for Microsoft auctions.
- Scale while CPA stays below Google's. Most advertisers find Microsoft saturates at a fraction of their Google spend; when extra budget stops buying conversions, stop adding it.
What does not carry over cleanly
Conversion tracking needs its own tag (UET) or an offline import. Audience lists need rebuilding. Some ad extensions behave differently. Check each after import rather than assuming they work.
Compare your numbers on the Microsoft Ads benchmark hub and the Google Ads benchmark hub.
About the figures
Benchmark figures in this article come from the BenchMarketing dataset and update when the benchmark pages do. Each benchmark page lists its sources and period; see our methodology.
See where you stand
Compare your own numbers with these benchmarks for your industry.
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