Despite its 17% revenue growth year over year , Bing is forever trying to sprint out from under Google’s shadow. Earlier this year, Google expanded ad capabilities to allow more characters and lines. A few months later, Bing announced the same capabilities. But even though the search engine lost some ground to its main competitor, Bing’s Q3 CPC, CPM, and CTR numbers prove it’s not something marketers should ignore. Read on to see what we found when we analyzed over 37 million ad impressions and over 1 million clicks for ads on Bing. And, don’t forget to download the report for all the stats on CPM, CPC, and CTR benchmarks for Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Google Ads, Google Display Network, YouTube, and Twitter.

Bing CPC, CPM, & CTR for Q3 2018 at-a-glance

• Median CPC was $2.46
• Median CPM was $67.50
• Median CTR was 2.80%

Bing CPC continues its downward slide
AdStage data found that median CPC dropped 63 cents from last quarter, continuing the downward trend we’ve seen all year, and is $1.73 cheaper compared to the same time last year.

Q3 2018 Bing ad performance data from 37.5MM Impressions and 1MM Clicks

Bing CPM on par with Google Search CPM
We found that median CPM dropped a whopping $22 from last quarter, landing $1.50 below the $69 median CPM we calculated for Google Search. Bing’s CPM is 21% cheaper Y/Y.

Q3 2018 Bing ad performance data from 37.5MM Impressions and 1MM Clicks

Bing CTR drops slightly
Median CTR for ads on Bing decreased slightly from last quarter but has increased significantly, 34.6%, compared to Q3 of 2017.

Q3 2018 Bing ad performance data from 37.5MM Impressions and 1MM Clicks

Bing ad trends Q3 2018
Bing’s new search features take discovery even deeper . Upholding Microsoft’s commitment to make AI accessible to everybody, Q3 saw Bing debut a handful of features that take search to a new level. In June 2018, the company launched Visual Search, which allowed users to search the web using their camera. Bing expanded on that technology with a host of new capabilities including:

• Text Transcription, which allows you to quickly copy and search the text you see directly through your camera
• Math Solver, which helps you solve equations simply by taking a photo
• Updates to the Visual Search dialog box to make it easier to drag/drop, copy/paste, or take a photo with which to start a search

Bing also announced an intelligent feature that allows users to easily compare prices across multiple providers so that you can save money and time. The examples they offered included hotel booking, home services pricing and scheduling, and coupons and deals.

Download the entire report for all the stats on CPM, CPC, and CTR benchmarks for Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Google Ads, Google Display Network, YouTube, and Twitter.