Bing Product Ads Update

About two weeks ago, Bing Ads released an update to their Product (Shopping) Ads platform. A few different features were announced, which we at PDM are excited to implement and test!

Additional Ad Images on SERPs

First – in an effort to increase Bing Shopping engagement and conversion rate, Bing is allowing advertisers to add multiple pictures of their products to the Bing Product Feed. We’re of the opinion that this should only improve the performance of Bing shopping campaigns and allows advertisers to have even more creativity in the way they position their product.

The change allows your audience to see up to 11 images of your product as opposed to the single image before! Some more good news – for those of you already familiar with how to create and manage a product feed, it’s very easy to implement into your ad account. I pulled directions straight from Bing’s press release, which you can see below:

You can start right away by specifying these additional images (list of comma-separated URLs) in the product feed using an existing optional column [additional_image_link]. The same validation rules as [image_link] will apply.

We haven’t had a chance to test this new Bing Shopping tactic, but we only see upside here. If you believe in the product you’re advertising, it should only serve to increase your performance. You’re giving your searchers even more context and perspective to inform their eventual purchase decision.

Simple Bing Merchant Center Domain Verification through UET

Second – advertisers are now able to easily verify the domain of their online store through the use of UET (Universal Event Tracking) tags. This is a minor change to the process of creating a BMC store, but streamlines some of the complicated-ness (is that a word?) involved in the setup.

Originally, we had to verify domains through Bing Webmaster Tools. Now we’re able to use the event-tracking codes tagged on the website. When validating the domain through the BMC, the domains that house your tag will appear in a drop-down menu on the Create a Store page.

Once you let Bing know that you’re validating through the UET tag, you should get an option to select the Destination URL. In-depth instructions from Bing can be found here.

Have you had a chance to try out these new features to Bing Ads? Let us know what you think in the comments below!