Google accounts for over 80% of users among search engines. However, this article isn't about Google; it is about the second-biggest search engine, Bing.
As a marketer, you know the importance of Microsoft Ads (formerly Bing Ads): who wouldn't like relatively lower CPCs and competition? While Bing may not be as big as its competitor, it still boasts 1.4 billion unique monthly visitors and more than 100 million daily users.
Marketers often overlook Bing Ads due to Google’s dominance, but it offers significant potential. With sophisticated tools and detailed analytics, Bing Ads can align well with your business goals.
Moreover, it provides more advertising space, allowing you to target additional platforms like Yahoo! and AOL. If you’ve considered using Bing Ads for the above reasons, that’s a great first step! If it has already helped you stand out in your niche market, even better.
In this article, we will explore how to effectively utilize analytics, create intuitive reports, and maximize the benefits of this search engine.
How to extract Bing Ads insights to Google Sheets?
We’ll take you through quick and effective methods to build Bing Ad reports on Google Sheets. First, you must install the Two Minute Reports (TMR) add-on to Google Sheets; follow this step-by-step installation tutorial: How to install Two Minute Reports
After installation, choose one of the two methods to proceed:
- Method 1: Connect Bing Ads data to Google Sheets using the Sidebar
- Method 2: Connect Bing Ads data to Google Sheets using in-built templates
Method 1: Create a Bing Ads report using the sidebar
Step 1: Creating the Connection
- Open a new Google Sheet and launch Two Minute Reports from the extensions menu. The TMR sidebar appears on the right side of the screen.
Note: The sidebar is the primary interface of TMR, which includes all its tools and features.
- Click the menu button and navigate to the Connections section from the dropdown menu.
- Click the blue “Add” button to create a new Connection.
- Name the Connection appropriately to be able to locate it for future use.
- Use the dropdown menu below to find all available Connectors. From here, locate Microsoft Ads — you can simply type in the text box in the menu to search for it.
- Once you select the Connector, click “Sign in with Microsoft” to proceed to the authorization page.
Note: If you get an error message during authorization, check that you’ve signed in with the right Microsoft account.
- Once you’ve signed in, your Bing Ads account will be added to the list of Connections in TMR. You can save the Connection by clicking “Save.”
Step 2: Creating a query and report configuration
- You must create a data query to extract data from the source you added to the sidebar. Click the menu button to the left and go to the Data Queries section.
- In this section, you’ll find all data queries you create with Two Minute Reports. To create a new query, click on “Add +”.
- Name the data query appropriately, and choose the accounts from which you need to extract data.
Note: For agencies, you can create data queries that combine multiple accounts and data sources with the Client option. This feature lets you combine a client’s accounts to create a unified dashboard with multi-channel data. Here’s how you create a query using the Clients feature: How to create queries using Clients.
- Choose the metrics that you’d like to see in your report. You can search for these metrics in the top search bar or the dropdown menu.
Note: Make sure to explore the various available categories and metrics. Each metric could add value to your report.
- Finally, set the dimensions of the report. Like in the Metrics section, you can search for dimensions using the search bar or explore the various categories in the “Dimensions” dropdown menu.
- After selecting your combination of metrics and dimensions, you can set the date range for the report. You can choose a predefined data range in Two Minute Reports or create a custom date range.
- You can also organize and filter your data from within the sidebar.
- To organize, click on the “Sort” drop-down section select the relevant data fields and choose whether to sort it in ascending or descending order.
- You can do the same in the “Filter” drop-down section to add custom filters or currency conversions to your data.
- You can also configure other data options like:
- Include missing time values
- Replace blank metrics with zeros
- No header row
- Merge new data with old
- Append new data
- Limit the number of rows
- Do not force aggregate
- Include data without insights.
- Once you’ve defined your query, you can run it to visualize the final output. This query fetches the data from the data source onto the sheet and cell of your choice.
Pro TMR Tip: Once you’ve created your query, you can run it directly from the Extensions menu in Google Sheets. Go to Extensions > Two Minute Reports > choose your desired quick action.
Method 2: Creating a Bing Ads report with templates
With TMR’s vast template gallery, you can build intuitive and visual reports within minutes. Each pre-built report reduces effort, as these templates incorporate a specific combination of metrics, scorecards, and visual aids to serve different purposes, such as getting an overall view or tracking a particular area.
| To use Two Minute Reports templates, create a Connection and authorize it from Step 1 in the previous method. |
- Once the Connection is created and authorized, you can access the Templates Gallery from the Two Minute Reports sidebar menu.
Note: You can also open the Templates Gallery directly from Extensions > Two Minute Reports > Templates
- In the Template Gallery, you can filter the template that fits your purpose by category or data source. You can also search for specific templates if you have something in mind.
- Once you find the right template, click “Use” to build your template.
- Then, choose the preferred Connection and the relevant Account Views.
- Name your report, and click “Submit” to create the report.
- Click “Go to your new Spreadsheet” to access the new report. Once the new report opens up, launch the TMR sidebar.
- Open the menu next to the “Add” button and click “Run All Queries” to update the template with your data within the date range.
- Once the queries are complete, the template will be updated with your data!
Scheduling Data Refresh and emails
So far, you’ve:
- Installed Two Minute Reports (TMR)
- Created a (Bing Ads) Connection in TMR
- Authorized the Connection
- Created a Data Query that fetches you the data
All that’s left to do is run the query whenever you need data. You can also automate your data queries, scheduling them for weekly, daily, or even hourly updates!
With the “Schedule Refresh” feature, TMR runs automatically, constantly refreshing your queries to your desired date, time, and duration. With this feature, you can also receive your updates via email. Here’s how you set up this feature.
- Click on the menu and then on Schedule Reports to open the section. You can create a “Schedule” from this section, which instructs Two Minute Reports to run the query automatically.
- Name the Schedule and choose the time interval between the data refreshes. From this section, you can select the following:
- The frequency of data refreshes: daily, weekly, or monthly.
- The designated day for the refresh
- The time for the refresh
- Choose the Action for every data refresh— whether you need an email notification for every refresh.
- Then choose the relevant sheet for the refresh, and type in your email (in case you need an email notification)
- Save the refresh and ensure that TMR will refresh your data at the desired intervals.
Use our quick templates for Google Sheets
1. Microsoft/Bing Ads - Campaign and Ad Analysis Report
This is our Microsoft/Bing Ads template specialised for Ad group and Campaign Analysis. This template would fetch you all the up to date required KPIs like Amount Spent, impressions, Clicks, CTR, CPC, etc.. as scorecards to get a cumulative value of the entire date range and also as timeline charts to infer data date wise. Up next you have Campaign Performance table which indicates the clicks, impressions, CTR, CPC and Amount Spent. Then, you get tables like Ad group analysis and Ad analysis along with its KPIs . Finally you get the demographics section which gets Age group and Gender Insights Pie charts and also geo charts for the Top countries and states, Device platforms and OS w.r.t impressions. Click on use Template to get a better perspective of it.
Why import Bing Ads data in Google Sheets?
Google Sheets is popular among data analysts, marketers, and enthusiasts because of its features. While simple and intuitive, Google Sheets packs a lot of punch and sophisticated functionality.
Add-ons and extensions
Google Sheets can integrate several key functions through add-ons. For example, with Two Minute Reports, you can extract data, manage, create, and schedule reports.
Optimized data management
By constantly integrating your Bing Ads data to Google Sheets, you can eliminate downloading CSV files, analyzing, and creating reports manually. Real-time data is fresh and actionable, ensuring you’re always working with the most current information.
Comprehensive data analysis
Insightful Metrics and Collaborative Accessibility are key benefits when using Google Sheets to manage your website/app’s performance. With a Bing Ads add-on, you can dissect and analyze data, compare them, and create custom metrics that align with your business goals.
Collaborative access
Building a spreadsheet also allows for seamless collaboration between functions in your organization. The ease of data accessibility allows teams to work together with real-time data, fostering a highly collaborative environment.
Customization and flexibility
Importing Bing Ads data into Google Sheets allows you to customize your reports according to your needs. You can arrange the metrics and dimensions most relevant to your business goal for effective analysis.
Workflow efficiency
Setting up automated workflows to channel data from Bing Ads to Google Sheets effectively streamlines the data journey from source to analysis. This process ensures seamless synchronization when you connect Bing Ads to Google Sheets, enabling consistent workflow management by keeping your datasets always synchronized.
Marketing strategy enhancement
When you export Bing Ads data into Google Sheets, you can conduct multi-channel analyses to simultaneously evaluate performance across multiple channels. This approach enables you to make data-driven decisions that enhance the effectiveness of your marketing strategy.
Which metrics from Bing Ads analytics should you track?
Analytics is a crucial step that tells you if a platform works for marketing and business goals. Follow these steps to build the foundation of your analytical strategy.
- Understanding Bing Ads: Find out how you can use Bing Ads to serve your business goals. Bing Ads works differently for different purposes, underscoring the importance of exploring it.
- Audience and Platforms: Whom are you targeting? Which platforms would you want to explore?
Knowing your target audience and where to find them is important. Bing Ads gives you granular control over your ad campaigns. This means you can set up ad campaigns for different platforms, targeted audiences, locations, or even devices.
- Identifying the key metrics: Advertisers on Bing enjoy a wide range of metrics that enhance their analytical game. Identify which KPIs accurately measure your campaign's success.
Below are some commonly measured KPIs in 2024:
Core metrics
- Clicks
- Impressions
- Click-Through Rate (CTR)
- Cost Per Click (CPC)
- Cost Per Acquisition (CPA)
Conversion metrics
- Conversions
- Conversion Rate
- Conversion Value
Quality metrics
- Quality Score (indicates the quality and relevance of your ads, keywords, and landing pages)
- Ad Rank (determines the position of your ad on Bing's search results page)
- Average Position (shows where ads appear relative to other ads on search result pages)
Other important metrics
- Impression Share (calculates the percentage of impressions your ads receive compared to the total number of impressions they were eligible for)
- Ad Relevance (measures how well an ad matches a user's search query or browsing habit, also known as keyword relevance)
- Landing Page Experience (the usefulness and relevance of your landing page, as well as how easily users can navigate it)
- Analytics and Reporting: Reporting is the final and most crucial step in tracking data. A well-presented visual report could help you compare performance and draw inferences from your KPIs to optimize your operations.
Get Bing Ads data in Looker Studio
Two Minute Reports can be installed as an add-on to integrate Bing Ads data with Looker Studio (formerly Google Data Studio) as well, enabling advanced data analysis and visualization.
This Bing Ads add-on allows the creation of detailed reports and dashboards using insights from Bing Ads without the complexity of manual data entry. Looker Studio’s customization capabilities also let users craft custom formulae in a user-friendly interface.
With seamless integration, comprehensive analytical capabilities, and automated workflows, strategic business intelligence from Bing Ads has just become quicker and more accessible.
Connect other data sources with Google Sheets
With this add-on, you can connect 30+ data sources to Google Sheets, create additional reports, create visualizations, and build a comprehensive report.
Facebook Ads
Social media ad platform for targeted audience reach.
Google Ads
Advertising platform for displaying ads on Google's search results pages.
Linkedin Ads
Professional social media platform's advertising data source.
Snapchat Ads
Social media advertising platform for Snapchat users.
You can combine Facebook Ads data with not just Ad platforms but other platforms.
