Try out Bing Ads. To get you started, here is a coupon for $100 Free ads credit (when you spend $25).

New Update: due to popular demand, I’ve made a page dedicated to advertising credits which includes credits for Bing Ads, Google AdWords, Amazon, and much more. Check out my advertising deals page.. Many of them require you to be a new user. I highly recommend trying them out as advertising is an excellent way to test the popularity of services and products. Doing so for free is even better. The Bing Ads credits that are on my page include a $50 and $100 credit, which will definitely last you awhile.

Bing Ads probably doesn’t need any introduction, but just case you don’t know, here’s some brief information. You can think of Bing Ads as Microsoft’s version of what Google Adwords is to Google.

What is it?

Bing Ads is an advertising platform based on the pay-per-click (PPC) model. There are 2 types of network within the platform – search and content. The search side is the traffic that comes from searches that are performed on Bing.com. In this case, Bing gets paid 100% of the click revenue. The content side involves one more party – the publisher. The publisher is someone that has signed up under the platform and has agreed to display advertisements on their site in exchange for a share of the revenue.

If you’ve ever logged into Bing’s advertising platform, you will notice that much of the features and layout are pretty similar to Google Adwords. It’s because the two systems are very similar. Both are PPC search networks and both serve the same purpose. The main difference would be the source of traffic. Google Adwords gets its traffic from Google users, while Bing Ads gets its traffic from Bing and Yahoo users. Since 2012, Bing and Yahoo has been working together as search partners. So, the search results you see on Bing will be the same as the search results you’ll see on Yahoo. Combined, the Yahoo/Bing search network, represents about 30% of the total search market share in the US (as of Feb 2013).

Is it effective?

The traffic quality is just as good as Google’s traffic in my opinion. Apart from organic search engine traffic, it doesn’t get much better than PPC traffic. The people that use search engines to find things on the Internet are real everyday people like you and me. People who use search engines are usually doing research or looking for something specific, like a product or service. They have a purpose and driven by intent.

Who should advertise on Bing Ads?

This kind of advertising is ideal for most business sites that sell products or services online. The reason why so many businesses advertise on platforms like this is because the traffic is genuine. Also, Bing Ads allows you to take full control of your campaign – from CPC and budget settings, to targeting keywords, demographics and time ranges, to detailed reports. Furthermore, by implementing conversion tracking through Bing Ads, businesses can measure their ROI.

Before getting started

Having experience in marketing helps because you’ll need to set up ads. A lot of psychology goes into how users react to things they see in an ad – like keywords, placements, actions words, etc. There are many articles online that’ll give you advice on how to set up effective PPC ads so do some research.

Also, you’ll have to research keywords and the market. Sometimes, there’s more than meets the eye… what you think may work, doesn’t, and what you don’t think will work, works. Start off slow – set a starting budget that you’ll be comfortable with. Go through every feature and understand what you’re doing. Be ready to test and adjust. By optimizing your campaigns over time, you’ll be able to save money and improve your ROI.

Note: If you have used Google Adwords before, you’re in luck. Bing Ads has a feature where you can automatically import all your campaigns and settings from Google Adwords.