Microsoft Ads vs Google Ads

Same keywords, thinner auctions. Microsoft serves the search demand Google does not: Bing, Windows surfaces, older and more desktop audiences. Fewer bidders generally means cheaper clicks, but volume is a fraction of Google's. The arbitrage pays when your economics survive the smaller pool.

The LocaliQ 2026 survey pools Google and Microsoft search campaigns into one dataset: $66.69 average cost per lead, $5.42 average CPC▸LocaliQ · 2026 survey, with no per-engine split published. Neither engine publishes rates▸Microsoft · checked 2026▸Google · checked 2026. So the widely-repeated "Microsoft is 30% cheaper" claims have no current citable base, and this page prints none. The deltas that matter are the ones your own mirror test produces.

• Auction density: fewer advertisers compete per query, so second-price dynamics settle lower. The effect is biggest in categories where Google auctions are saturated (legal, insurance; see the legal page for what saturation costs).
• Audience skew: Microsoft's surfaces skew desktop, older, higher-income, and B2B-heavy office contexts. Offers matched to that skew convert above their Google rate, compounding the cheaper click.
• Volume ceiling: total query volume caps scale. Microsoft is an efficiency layer on top of a Google program, not a replacement for one.

• Import the proven Google campaigns, then reset bid targets rather than inheriting them; auction levels differ (import notes).
• Run four weeks minimum, score both engines on backend conversions with one attribution window, and compare marginal CPA against your ceiling.
• Expect the blended read to improve even when the Microsoft average matches Google: incremental cheap conversions extend the efficient frontier (blended CPA).