AdStage’s data from almost 40 million ad impressions and a million clicks on Bing Ads in Q1 2018 shows that the average CPM (cost per thousand impressions) increased by 22% compared to last year. The average CPC remained relatively stable at $3.36, and the CTR averaged at 2.5% -- a slight increase from last year’s 2.41% benchmark. Read below for more data on how much Bing Ads cost, and how they performed in Q1 2018.

Download the Q1 2018 Paid Search and Paid Social ads Benchmark Report to see results for all the major ad networks.

Bing Ads benchmarks in Q1 2018

In Q1 2018, advertisers on the AdStage platform spent, on average, $9.68 per thousand impressions (CPM) and $3.21 per click (CPC). The average click-through rate (CTR) on Bing Ads was 2.50%.

Bing Ads CPMs spike in 2018

Bing CPMs increased 13.7% QoQ in Q1 2018. Compared to last year, the costs are up 22%. Even with this spike, Bing Ads remain the most cost-effective solution for search advertising.

Costs per click for Bing Ads remain flat YoY

Over the past 12 month, Bing Ads CPCs remained relatively flat. After a spike in Q3 when the price per click went up to almost $4 per click, Q1 2018 costs evened out at $3.36, just 3 cents below last year’s benchmark.

Bing Ads CTRs are below 3%

Bing Ads CTRs are slightly up from last year, averaging at 2.50%. Even though this benchmark is still low for search advertising , the upward trend in the past two quarters shows promise.

Bing Ads news and trends in Q1 2018

Q1 2018 brought several changes for Bing advertisers. Bing Ads got a lot easier to manage with account-level ad extensions , labels for Dynamic Search Ads , and an update in Bing’s exact match close variant technology for Canada and Australia.

In Q1 2018, Bing also retired its sidebar text ads , updated conversion tracking, and launched a new feature for audience segmentation. The option to enable auto-tagging of the Microsoft Click ID is now set by default when creating conversion goals to ensure the correct reporting on the Safari browser. The new Audience Segmentation feature allows advertisers to slice and dice their ad group performance data to see how different ad groups are performing with remarketing, in-market, or custom audiences.

We’ll be posting more on the latest PPC benchmarks in the upcoming few weeks. To get early access to Q2 2018 paid advertising benchmarks and trends, subscribe to our blog.