There is a strange auction happening every day across the Fraser Valley. On one side of it, every med spa, dentist, plumber and lawyer in the region bids against each other for the same Google keywords, and the click prices show the crowding. On the other side, the same local customers type the same searches into a different box, and almost nobody shows up to bid at all. That second auction is Microsoft Advertising, the ads behind Bing, and the discount for simply showing up to it is one of the quietest bargains in local marketing.
Why the same search costs less over there
Click prices are set by competition, nothing more mystical than that. When twelve businesses bid on emergency dentist Abbotsford, the price climbs until someone blinks. On Bing, the search happens, the customer is identical in intent, and the bidding crowd is often two businesses or none, so the auction clears at a fraction of the price. Across accounts we manage, the same keyword routinely costs thirty to fifty percent less per click on Microsoft’s network, and in sleepy categories the gap is wider still. Same customer, same moment of need, smaller invoice.
Who is actually searching on Bing
More people than the conventional wisdom admits, and a particularly useful slice of them. Bing arrives as the default on every Windows computer, inside the Edge browser, and increasingly inside Microsoft’s AI assistant surfaces, which means it quietly owns a share of desktop search that never shows up in casual conversation. The demographics skew a little older, more settled, more likely to be searching from a work computer, which for many valley service businesses describes the exact customer who pays invoices on time and books the larger jobs. These are not leftover searchers, they are often the best ones, available at a discount because the room is half empty.
The catch, and it is a small one
Honesty requires the other half of the picture. Bing’s search volume is a fraction of Google’s, so it functions as a second channel, not a replacement. A business doing poorly on Google will not be saved by Bing, and a business not yet running search ads at all should start where the volume is. The platform shines specifically as an expansion for accounts that already work, which is why our standing advice at the Microsoft Bing ads desk is blunt. Profitable on Google first, then import, retune and collect the cheaper clicks alongside.
The import that takes days, not months
The practical barrier to entry is lower than almost any channel, because Microsoft built a direct import from Google Ads. Campaigns, ad groups, keywords and ads transfer in days, carrying across the structure your budget already paid to prove. The work, and there genuinely is some, is the retune afterwards, because the two auctions price and match differently, and a straight copy left running on autopilot leaks money in small, steady ways. Bids need adjusting to the quieter auction, match types behave differently, and the demographic lean rewards slightly different ad copy. A few hours of expert attention after import is the difference between a bargain and a mess.
One scoreboard or it did not happen
The final piece is measurement, and it is non negotiable. Bing conversions must land in the same tracking and the same reports as your Google numbers, so the two platforms compete for your budget on one honest page. Run separately, Bing becomes an orphan account nobody reviews. Run together, it becomes a monthly arithmetic question, which channel bought this month’s customers cheaper, and the budget drifts toward the winner. In our client accounts that drift has steadily favoured giving Bing a modest permanent seat, funded entirely by what the same clicks used to cost on the busier platform.
What to do with twenty minutes this week
Open your Google Ads account and note your average cost per click and cost per enquiry in your top campaign. Those numbers are your benchmark. Then ask whether a thirty to fifty percent discount on a meaningful slice of the same searches would matter to your year, because for most local businesses the arithmetic answers itself. The import, the retune and the shared scoreboard are an afternoon of setup for a team that has done it before, and ours has. Bring your benchmarks to our South Fraser Way office and we will show you, with local numbers, exactly what the quiet auction would pay you to attend.
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