How do these platforms identify and address underperforming keywords and ads on Bing Ads?

Identifying and addressing underperforming keywords and ads is crucial for optimizing Bing Ads (Microsoft Advertising) campaigns. These platforms offer a variety of tools and features to help advertisers pinpoint areas where performance may be lacking and provide actionable insights to improve those underperforming elements. Here's how Microsoft Advertising identifies and addresses underperforming keywords and ads:

1. Performance Monitoring and Metrics
Microsoft Advertising provides a range of performance metrics to monitor how keywords and ads are performing. By regularly reviewing these metrics, advertisers can identify underperforming keywords and ads and take steps to optimize them.

Key Metrics:
Click-Through Rate (CTR): A low CTR indicates that your ads are not resonating with users or that the keywords you're targeting aren't as relevant as expected.

Conversion Rate (CVR): If the conversion rate is low despite clicks, this could suggest that users are clicking on your ads but not completing the desired action on your website.

Cost-Per-Click (CPC): If certain keywords or ads are generating high CPC without delivering good ROI (e.g., high costs without conversions), this could be a sign of underperformance.

Impression Share: If your ads aren't showing up as often as expected, low impression share might indicate issues with your bids or budget allocation.

Quality Score: Low Quality Scores for keywords can indicate that the ads or landing pages associated with them aren't relevant or optimized well.

These performance metrics are available at both the keyword level and ad level, making it easier to identify the specific underperforming elements of your campaign.

2. Automated Recommendations
Microsoft Advertising offers automated recommendations to help identify underperforming keywords and ads, along with suggestions for improving performance.

Key Features:
Keyword Performance Suggestions: The platform analyzes your keywords and identifies those that are underperforming in terms of CTR, conversions, or ROI. It may suggest adding negative keywords to filter irrelevant traffic, increasing bids on underperforming keywords that show potential, or pausing low-performing keywords.

Ad Copy Recommendations: If ads are not performing well, the system may suggest improving the ad copy. This could involve testing different ad formats, calls to action (CTAs), or keyword insertion techniques to increase relevance and engagement.

Budget Allocation Suggestions: If certain keywords or ads are underperforming due to insufficient budget, Microsoft Advertising will recommend increasing the budget to improve ad delivery and performance.

Bid Adjustment Recommendations: Automated recommendations can suggest bid adjustments for underperforming keywords or ads. For example, if a particular keyword isn't getting enough impressions, the system may suggest increasing the bid to increase visibility and drive more traffic.

3. Search Query Reports
The Search Query Report (SQR) is a valuable tool for identifying irrelevant or low-performing search queries that are triggering your ads. By analyzing these reports, you can identify keywords that are not generating valuable clicks and refine your campaigns accordingly.

How to Use SQR:
Identifying Irrelevant Keywords: The SQR shows the actual search queries that triggered your ads. If certain queries are irrelevant or do not lead to conversions, you can add them as negative keywords to prevent wasted spend.

Identifying High-Performing Keywords: Conversely, you may discover new high-performing keywords that you can add to your campaign, increasing your reach and targeting effectiveness.

Keyword Refinement: If a keyword is underperforming, the SQR helps you identify if the problem is with the keyword itself or if it's linked to a poor search query match. This can guide you in refining keyword targeting or adjusting match types.

4. A/B Testing and Ad Variations
One of the best ways to identify underperforming ads is by conducting A/B testing and experimenting with different ad variations. Microsoft Advertising provides tools to run tests and compare the performance of different versions of your ads.

Key Features:
Responsive Search Ads (RSAs): RSAs allow you to input multiple headlines and descriptions, and Microsoft Advertising will automatically test different combinations to determine which performs best. This helps identify underperforming ads and optimize ad creatives for better results.

Ad Rotation Settings: By setting your ads to rotate evenly, you can ensure that each ad gets tested over a significant period. This allows you to identify which ads are underperforming and make necessary adjustments.

Testing Variations: Running ad variations with different messaging, CTAs, or offers will help you compare which version performs best with your audience. If certain ads underperform, you can refine them by using better-targeted messaging or more compelling CTAs.

5. Keyword Planner and Performance Forecasting
The Keyword Planner tool helps you discover new keywords that can potentially improve your campaign performance, and it provides forecasting for those keywords. If certain keywords are underperforming, you can use this tool to explore alternative keywords or identify better-performing ones.

How It Helps:
Keyword Volume and Trends: Keyword Planner shows search volume data, trends, and competition levels for specific keywords. If certain underperforming keywords have low search volume, you may decide to switch to higher-volume, more relevant keywords.

Forecasting: The tool offers performance forecasts for new keywords, helping you predict how they will perform in terms of clicks, impressions, and conversions, which can help you replace underperforming keywords with more promising options.

6. Bid Strategy Optimization
Microsoft Advertising offers automated bidding strategies such as Maximize Conversions, Target CPA, and Target ROAS, which use machine learning to optimize bids and improve performance. These strategies can help improve the performance of underperforming keywords and ads by automatically adjusting bids in real time.

Key Features:
Maximize Conversions: This bidding strategy automatically adjusts bids to get the most conversions within your budget. If certain keywords or ads are underperforming, this strategy can help allocate more budget to higher-performing keywords, potentially improving overall campaign performance.

Target CPA (Cost-Per-Acquisition): If you're not getting enough conversions or are paying too much per conversion, Target CPA adjusts your bids to maximize conversions at a set cost per acquisition, helping improve the efficiency of underperforming keywords.

Target ROAS (Return on Ad Spend): If your keywords or ads are not generating sufficient revenue, Target ROAS automatically adjusts bids to maximize revenue based on your desired return on ad spend.

7. Dynamic Search Ads (DSA) for Identifying Performance Gaps
Dynamic Search Ads (DSA) can help you identify performance gaps by automatically creating ads based on the content of your website. If certain keywords or ads are underperforming, DSA can help capture more relevant search queries by dynamically creating ads that match user intent.

How It Helps:
Capturing Missed Opportunities: DSA can identify relevant search queries that your traditional keyword-based campaigns might be missing, helping you address gaps in your targeting.

Improving Relevance: Since DSA automatically generates ads based on your website's content, it ensures that your ads are highly relevant to user searches, potentially improving performance on underperforming keywords.

8. Quality Score Improvement Tools
If certain keywords or ads are underperforming due to low Quality Score, Microsoft Advertising provides tools to help improve it.

Key Features:
Ad Relevance: Improving the relevance of your ads to the targeted keywords can increase your Quality Score. If your ads are not matching well with your keywords, they may not perform well, and Microsoft Advertising will recommend adjustments to improve the relevance.

Landing Page Experience: Ensure that the landing page users are directed to is relevant, fast, and mobile-friendly. A poor landing page experience negatively impacts Quality Score, which in turn affects ad performance.

Expected CTR: If your ads have a low Expected Click-Through Rate, Microsoft Advertising will suggest ways to improve this metric, such as revising the ad copy or adjusting the bidding strategy.

9. Competitor Insights
Using the Auction Insights tool, Microsoft Advertising allows you to analyze how your ads are performing compared to competitors. If your keywords or ads are underperforming compared to competitors, this can give you insights into areas where you need to improve.

How It Helps:
Market Share: Auction Insights provide data on your share of voice, showing how often your ads appear in relation to competitors. If your share of voice is low, this can indicate underperformance and help you adjust bids, budget, or targeting.

Competitive Benchmarking: Understanding how your competitors are performing can help you identify gaps in your own strategy and adjust your approach to stay competitive.

Conclusion
Microsoft Advertising provides a comprehensive suite of tools to help advertisers identify and address underperforming keywords and ads on Bing Ads. These tools include:

Performance metrics to track CTR, conversion rates, and other key data.

Automated recommendations for improving keywords, ad copy, and bidding strategies.

Search Query Reports (SQR) to identify irrelevant or underperforming queries.

A/B testing and ad variations to optimize ad messaging.

Keyword Planner and forecasting for finding better-performing keywords.

Smart bidding strategies like Maximize Conversions, Target CPA, and Target ROAS to automate bid adjustments.

Dynamic Search Ads (DSA) for identifying performance gaps and improving relevance.