How to Master Bing Ads Bidding Strategies (Manual vs Automated)
- November 21, 2025
- 4:48 pm
If you want to get the most out of your Bing Ads campaigns, understanding the nuances of bidding strategies is critical. Bidding determines how much you pay for each click or conversion, directly impacting your ad visibility, cost per acquisition (CPA), and overall return on ad spend (ROAS). Bing Ads, now officially known as Microsoft Advertising, offers both manual and automated bidding strategies, each designed for different goals and campaign structures. In this guide, we’ll break down how to master these bidding strategies, optimize your campaigns, and choose the right approach for your business.
If you want to get the most out of your Bing Ads campaigns, understanding the nuances of bidding strategies is critical. For businesses looking for expert guidance, our Bing PPC Services provide hands-on support to optimize bids, maximize ROI, and drive high-quality conversions.
What Are Bing Ads Bidding Strategies?
At its core, a bidding strategy in Bing Ads is the approach you take to tell the platform how much you’re willing to pay to achieve a specific objective—be it clicks, conversions, or visibility. Bing Ads uses your bids to compete in the ad auction, determining which ads show and in what position.
There are two main categories of bidding strategies:
Manual Bidding – You set individual bids for keywords or ad groups.
Automated Bidding – Bing’s AI sets your bids dynamically to meet your campaign goals.
Both strategies have advantages and challenges, and mastering them requires a clear understanding of your business goals, conversion metrics, and budget flexibility.
Manual Bidding in Bing Ads
Manual bidding gives advertisers complete control over how much they pay for each click. You can adjust bids at the keyword, ad group, or campaign level.
Advantages of Manual Bidding
Precision Control: You can increase bids on high-performing keywords and decrease them on underperformers. This is ideal for advertisers with clear data on which keywords convert best.
Budget Flexibility: Manual bidding allows you to distribute your budget strategically, focusing on keywords that drive the most revenue or qualified traffic.
Transparency: Every bid is set by you, so you know exactly what you’re paying per click and can calculate ROAS accurately.
Disadvantages of Manual Bidding
Time-Consuming: Manually adjusting bids across hundreds or thousands of keywords is labor-intensive.
Requires Expertise: Without experience, it’s easy to overbid or underbid, leading to wasted spend or missed opportunities.
Slower Response: Manual bidding doesn’t react automatically to changes in search demand, competitor activity, or user behavior.
Best Practices for Manual Bidding
Use Performance Data: Analyze metrics like CTR, conversion rate, and CPA before adjusting bids.
Segment Keywords: Group high-performing keywords separately from low-performing ones to allocate budget effectively.
Adjust Based on Time and Device: If certain hours or devices convert better, tweak bids accordingly.
Set Bid Limits: Avoid overspending by setting maximum bids, especially for competitive keywords.
Manual bidding works best when your campaigns are smaller, highly targeted, or when you have granular data that allows for precise optimization.
Automated Bidding in Bing Ads
Automated bidding leverages Microsoft Advertising’s machine learning algorithms to optimize bids in real-time based on your campaign goals. You set the objective, and Bing adjusts bids dynamically for each auction.
Types of Automated Bidding
Enhanced CPC (Cost Per Click): Bing automatically adjusts your manual bids to increase the likelihood of conversions.
Maximize Clicks: Automatically sets bids to get the highest number of clicks within your budget.
Maximize Conversions: Adjusts bids to generate the most conversions possible within your budget.
Target CPA (Cost Per Acquisition): Bids are optimized to meet a specified cost per conversion.
Target ROAS (Return on Ad Spend): Adjusts bids to meet your desired return on ad spend.
Advantages of Automated Bidding
Efficiency: The AI handles bid adjustments, saving time and reducing manual work.
Real-Time Optimization: Bing responds instantly to fluctuations in search trends, competition, and user behavior.
Better Performance Potential: For campaigns with large keyword sets or complex goals, automated bidding can outperform manual strategies.
Disadvantages of Automated Bidding
Less Control: You rely on Bing’s algorithms, which may sometimes make bid adjustments you wouldn’t manually choose.
Learning Period: Automated strategies often require a few weeks to gather enough data to optimize effectively.
Risk of Overspend: Without careful monitoring, campaigns can exceed your intended CPA or budget if settings aren’t configured correctly.
Best Practices for Automated Bidding
Define Clear Goals: Whether it’s clicks, conversions, or ROAS, your objective must be specific.
Ensure Conversion Tracking is Accurate: Automated bidding relies on data, so every conversion action must be tracked properly.
Start with Broad Settings, Then Refine: Begin with general bidding strategies and refine once the algorithm has enough data.
Monitor Performance Closely: Automated does not mean “set and forget.” Check performance weekly, especially during the learning phase.
Manual vs Automated Bidding: Which Should You Choose?
The choice between manual and automated bidding depends on several factors: campaign size, data availability, budget flexibility, and business objectives.
| Feature | Manual Bidding | Automated Bidding |
|---|---|---|
| Control | High | Low |
| Time Investment | High | Low |
| Optimization Speed | Slow | Fast (real-time) |
| Best For | Small campaigns, precise targeting | Large campaigns, conversion-focused |
| Risk of Overspending | Lower (if managed correctly) | Higher (requires monitoring) |
Rule of Thumb:
Use manual bidding if you have a small, highly targeted campaign or a very tight budget.
Use automated bidding for large campaigns, campaigns with many keywords, or when conversions are the primary goal.
Key Metrics to Monitor Regardless of Strategy
Regardless of which bidding approach you choose, certain metrics are essential for measuring success:
Click-Through Rate (CTR): Indicates how compelling your ad copy is. Low CTR may suggest the need for ad optimization rather than bid adjustment.
Conversion Rate: Shows whether clicks are resulting in desired actions. High CTR but low conversions could indicate targeting or landing page issues.
Cost Per Click (CPC): Essential to ensure bids are aligned with your budget.
Cost Per Acquisition (CPA): Measures efficiency of spend; critical for campaigns focused on ROI.
Impression Share: Reveals whether you’re competitive in the auction. Low impression share might require higher bids or broader targeting.
Advanced Bing Ads Bidding Strategies
Once you have a firm grasp of manual and automated bidding, it’s time to explore advanced strategies that can give your campaigns a competitive edge. These approaches combine data analysis, optimization techniques, and Bing Ads’ smart features to maximize performance.
1. Hybrid Bidding Approach
A hybrid strategy combines the precision of manual bidding with the efficiency of automation. Many experienced advertisers use this approach for different campaign types:
Manual for High-Value Keywords: Keep full control over bidding for top-performing or high-margin keywords.
Automated for Long-Tail or Broad Keywords: Allow Bing’s algorithm to optimize bids where data is less granular or the keyword set is too large to manage manually.
This approach balances control and efficiency, ensuring you don’t overspend on automation while still benefiting from AI optimization.
Best Practice: Monitor automated campaigns closely during the learning phase and consider setting maximum bid limits to prevent overspending.
2. Bid Adjustments by Device
Device targeting is crucial in modern PPC campaigns. User behavior can differ significantly between desktop, mobile, and tablet devices.
Mobile Users: Often have higher conversion intent for certain industries (like local services), but CPCs may fluctuate.
Desktop Users: Can generate higher-value conversions, such as B2B leads or high-ticket e-commerce sales.
Tablet Users: Generally less traffic, but still valuable for niche markets.
Bing Ads allows you to adjust bids by device:
Increase bids for devices that convert well.
Decrease or exclude devices that consistently underperform.
Example: If mobile conversions are twice as likely as desktop, you might increase mobile bids by 25-50% to maximize ROI.
3. Bid Adjustments by Location
Geo-targeting is another lever to optimize your bids. Location bid adjustments allow you to allocate budget to regions or cities where conversions are highest.
High-Performing Regions: Increase bids to ensure ads show prominently in lucrative areas.
Low-Performing Regions: Decrease bids or exclude to reduce wasted spend.
Pro Tip: Use historical conversion data to identify trends before making adjustments. Bing Ads’ location reports can reveal granular insights down to postal codes in some markets.
4. Time-Based Bid Adjustments
Timing can significantly affect ad performance. Users behave differently at different times of the day and days of the week.
Peak Hours: Increase bids during periods of high conversion probability.
Off-Peak Hours: Reduce bids to avoid paying for clicks that are less likely to convert.
Example: An online retailer may see most sales between 6 PM and 11 PM, so increasing bids during these hours can improve ROAS.
Bing Ads allows you to schedule bid adjustments based on hour of day or day of week, giving you granular control over spend efficiency.
5. Dynamic Keyword Insertion and Ad Optimization
While bidding strategies determine visibility, your ads’ relevance and engagement directly impact CPC and conversion. Bing rewards ads with high Quality Scores, which can reduce costs and improve positions.
Dynamic Keyword Insertion (DKI): Automatically updates ad headlines with the search query, improving CTR.
A/B Testing Ads: Continuously test variations of headlines, descriptions, and calls-to-action to identify high-performing combinations.
Match Type Optimization: Adjust bids based on match types (broad, phrase, exact) to control targeting precision and cost.
Pro Tip: Higher CTR and relevance can reduce your CPC regardless of your bidding strategy, making your campaigns more efficient.
6. Leveraging Audience Targeting
Bing Ads allows audience segmentation to influence bid strategies. By layering demographic, behavioral, or remarketing data onto campaigns, you can adjust bids for high-value segments:
Remarketing Audiences: Users who previously visited your site are more likely to convert. Increase bids to capture this warm traffic.
In-Market Audiences: Target users actively searching for products or services similar to yours.
LinkedIn Profile Targeting: For B2B campaigns, Bing’s LinkedIn data integration allows you to target by company, job function, or industry.
By adjusting bids for these audiences, you can allocate budget to users with the highest likelihood of conversion, improving ROAS.
7. Using Bid Strategies for Seasonal Campaigns
Seasonality can heavily influence campaign performance. For example, e-commerce campaigns often peak during holidays, while B2B services may see higher demand at the start of a fiscal year.
Pre-Season Preparation: Gradually increase bids leading into peak periods to gain market share.
During Peak: Allow automated bidding to optimize for conversions in real-time.
Post-Season: Reduce bids to avoid overpaying for low-intent traffic.
Bing Ads’ automated rules can help you schedule bid adjustments according to seasonal trends.
8. Monitoring and Continuous Optimization
Even with the most advanced bidding strategy, continuous monitoring is crucial. Performance metrics should guide iterative adjustments:
Regular Bid Audits: Compare bids against performance to identify opportunities for improvement.
Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO): Ensure landing pages are optimized; higher conversion rates reduce CPA and improve bidding efficiency.
Competitive Analysis: Monitor impression share and CPC trends to understand competitor activity.
Pro Tip: Set up automated reports in Bing Ads to track key KPIs such as CTR, CPC, CPA, and ROAS, so you can make data-driven adjustments quickly.
Conclusion: Mastering Bing Ads Bidding Strategies
Mastering Bing Ads bidding strategies takes time, testing, and expert insights. If you want to accelerate results and ensure every dollar spent drives conversions, explore our Microsoft Advertising Services and let our team optimize your campaigns for maximum performance.
Manual bidding offers precision and control, ideal for high-value or niche campaigns.
Automated bidding provides efficiency and real-time optimization, ideal for large campaigns focused on conversions.
Hybrid strategies combine the best of both worlds for optimal results.
Advanced techniques such as device, location, and time-based bid adjustments, along with audience targeting, seasonal optimization, and ad relevance, ensure that every dollar spent on Bing Ads works harder. By monitoring metrics, testing continuously, and aligning your bidding strategy with business objectives, you can achieve higher visibility, better ROI, and a competitive edge in Microsoft Advertising.
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About the author, Bill Nash
Bill Nash is the CMO of Marketing LTB with over a decade of experience, he has driven growth for Fortune 500 companies and startups through data-driven campaigns and advanced marketing technologies. He has written over 400 pieces of content about marketing, covering topics like marketing tips, guides, AI in advertising, advanced PPC strategies, conversion optimization, and others.