Can advertisers benchmark their view-through conversion performance against competitors on Bing Ads?

Currently, Microsoft Advertising (Bing Ads) does not provide direct tools or features that allow advertisers to benchmark their view-through conversion performance against competitors. However, there are several ways you can assess and optimize your own campaigns, which can indirectly give you insights into how you are performing relative to industry standards or competitors.

Here are a few methods to get insights into your view-through conversion performance and gauge how you're doing in comparison to others:

1. Industry Benchmarks and Reports
While Microsoft Advertising doesn't offer competitor-specific benchmarking data directly, they do provide industry-wide reports and general performance benchmarks that can help you assess where you stand. These reports often include insights into:

Average CTR (Click-Through Rate)

Conversion rates

Cost per conversion in various industries

By comparing your campaign metrics (including view-through conversions) with the industry averages, you can get a rough sense of how you're performing relative to others.

Where to find them: You can access these insights through Microsoft's advertising blog, case studies, and occasionally shared industry reports, which highlight trends and average performance data across different verticals.

2. Use Microsoft Advertising Insights
Microsoft Advertising provides performance metrics that help you optimize your campaigns. By analyzing metrics like impressions, click-through rate, conversion rate, and view-through conversions, you can compare your own campaign data over time. While this won't give you competitor data directly, it allows you to optimize your campaigns and see how your own performance is improving.

Tools to use: You can use the Auction Insights tool to gain a better understanding of how your campaign is performing in the auction relative to other advertisers. While Auction Insights doesn't show exact competitors' view-through conversions, it provides metrics such as impression share and overlap rate, which could give you a sense of where your campaigns stand compared to others.

3. Third-party Tools and Competitor Analysis Platforms
To benchmark against competitors, you can use third-party tools that provide more detailed competitive insights. Platforms such as:

SpyFu

SEMrush

SimilarWeb

Ahrefs

These tools help you understand how your competitors are performing in digital marketing, including their ad strategies, keywords, and performance metrics. While they don't provide exact view-through conversion data, they can give you valuable insights into competitor ad visibility, ad creatives, and ad spend.

4. A/B Testing and Performance Comparison
Another way to understand your performance is by conducting A/B testing. By testing different ad creatives, targeting strategies, or bidding strategies, you can assess how your view-through conversion rate compares under different conditions. If you're running several ads with different strategies, comparing the view-through conversions can help you identify areas for improvement.

This method won't give you direct competitor comparison data, but it will give you insights into which specific elements of your campaign are driving more view-through conversions and helping you improve your ROI.

5. Custom Reports and Google Analytics Integration
You can also track view-through conversions via Google Analytics and Microsoft Advertising integration. This setup allows you to have a deeper look at user interactions and analyze post-impression behavior. While this won't give direct competitor benchmarking data, you can build custom reports to assess performance over time, compare different audiences, or track performance against your own historical data.

6. Consult with Microsoft Advertising Support
You can reach out to Microsoft Advertising support or your account manager (if you have one) for advice on industry benchmarks and general best practices for view-through conversion performance. They may be able to provide insights or guide you toward resources that could give a better sense of how your performance aligns with broader trends in your industry.

Conclusion:
Although Microsoft Advertising doesn't directly offer tools for competitor-based benchmarking of view-through conversions, there are ways to indirectly compare your performance:

Use industry reports and insights from Microsoft Advertising.

Leverage third-party tools for competitive intelligence.

Analyze your own data with A/B testing and custom reporting.

Consult Microsoft's support team for guidance.