Bing Specialist, Google Agency, or One Manager for Both? Who Should Run Your Microsoft Ads

Your Google agency offers to add Bing with an import. A Microsoft Ads boutique says you need a specialist. I’d pick one manager who runs Google and Bing as separate accounts for most advertisers already spending on Google. The deciding test is not who knows the most Bing features. It is who gives Bing its own search-term reviews, bids and budget instead of handing it Google’s settings on a sync schedule.

I used to tell clients the import button was the smart start: click import, lower the bids a touch, let it run. I was wrong. An import can save setup time, but it cannot decide which Bing queries to block or what a click is worth in the Microsoft auction. That work has to happen after the import. Here is how I score the three options.

Meet the three contenders

The Bing-only boutique is easy to spot. The site leads with Microsoft Ads partner badges, Bing-specific case studies and LinkedIn targeting screenshots, and a founder who clearly likes the platform. I respect that focus. In my own accounts, the weeks I treated Bing as its own auction with its own negatives were the weeks it paid. The boutique’s weakness is context: if it cannot see your Google search terms, bid tests and failed keywords, it may have to relearn what you already paid to learn.

Then there is the Google agency offering Bing as a line item. You know the proposal: 10% extra fee, and it will mirror your Google structure. That mirror is the tell. Bing held 8.92% of US search overall in August 2026, 12.82% on desktop but only 1.81% on mobile. Microsoft ads can also serve on Yahoo, AOL and DuckDuckGo inventory. A desktop-heavy Microsoft mix is not your Google mobile mix. Copy the structure across and you risk paying for clicks that close at a different rate.

The third option is one manager running both channels, but keeping the accounts separate. The same person sees both search-term reports and the overall budget picture while maintaining two sets of negatives and two bid baselines. That is why I give this setup the win in most accounts: you keep the learning from Google without letting Google overwrite Bing. At groas, Search Ads covers Google, Bing and ChatGPT under one flat fee, with a strategist responsible for the work across channels.

1. Search terms: who opens the Bing account every week?

Ask every contender this first. Microsoft enables its audience network and search partners by default on import, and location can default to people in or searching for your area. Junk can enter before you have given Bing a fair test. One import checklist puts those defaults among the first things to check.

The boutique is likely to read Bing terms because Bing is the job. The bolt-on has an incentive to check Bing only when Google is quiet. Meanwhile, a broad-match change in Google can arrive in Bing without Bing negatives ready to catch it. One manager running both can see why that Google test exists, then decide whether it belongs in Bing at all.

My rule is simple: Bing needs its own weekly search-term pass and its own negative lists. Shared negative lists do not transfer on import. If nobody can show you what they blocked last week, you do not have Bing management. You have a sync schedule.

2. Imports: do they adapt the account or keep copying it?

A Google import is fine for day one. As an ongoing operating model, it leaks. Bid strategies do not map one to one, ad scheduling can reset to 24/7, shared negative lists stay behind, and extensions can go missing. Support teams see recurring problems with Google bids set too high for the Microsoft auction, wrong locations and languages, and lost negatives. Leave scheduled sync on, and a later Google change can bring the problem back. An auto-sync can also undo manual Bing budgets and negatives you just fixed.

The provider test is not whether they know where the import button lives. It is whether they pause scheduled imports and work through the account. The practical order is to pause sync, then review bids, budgets, negatives and extensions campaign by campaign.

Boutiques usually understand this. Bolt-ons often leave auto-import on because it looks like activity. The dual-channel manager has an extra advantage: they know which Google broad-match test is intentional and which should never cross over. Ask to see the import settings screen and the Bing negative list. If the provider cannot show both, do not take “we manage Microsoft Ads” on faith.

3. Bids and budgets: does Bing get its own numbers?

Pasting Google bids into Microsoft can erase the point of expanding there. The Microsoft auction is thinner, so a max CPC that buys position three on Google might buy position one on Bing with money left on the table. Across 73 advertisers running search on both platforms, Microsoft search CPC averaged $1.54 versus $2.93 on Google, 47% cheaper; non-brand averaged $1.57 versus $3.56. Those averages do not promise your account the same discount. They do give you a reason to stop copying bids to the decimal.

My starting point for exact-match imports is 30 to 40% below Google bids, then I let Microsoft’s own conversion history identify what deserves more. I set a separate daily budget, too. Otherwise, a scheduled import can overwrite the Bing limit I just chose.

Boutiques often get the platform-specific bid work right. The bolt-on is most likely to let Google’s settings ride across and call it done. One manager running both has the cleaner decision: one view of marginal CPA across platforms, but separate targets and budgets.

Say you spend $20k a month on Google at a $180 CPA. Bing does not have to hit $180 on day one. You can cap it at $3k, start bids 35% lower and judge its own CPA after 100 clicks per ad group. The point is not that those numbers fit everyone. It is that someone has to make a Bing decision rather than inherit a Google one. If your bids match to the decimal, ask who chose them.

4. Tracking: can you trust the Bing CPA?

This is where a bolt-on can make Bing look better than it is. One failure mode is double counting: an imported conversion goal runs beside a new UET goal for the same form fill. The reported sale fires twice, and automated bidding learns from inflated numbers. The fix is direct: keep one primary goal per action and turn off conversion-goal import. I have seen that exact setup inflate reported Bing ROAS for months while the CRM showed nothing comparable.

There is a second gap to account for. Microsoft does not connect natively to GA4 the way Google does, so a 73-advertiser study had to assume similar conversion rates to infer cheaper leads. Its practical advice was to set up UET on day one and judge Bing on cost per lead. I would also check the conversion definitions against what the CRM actually records.

A boutique should know UET. A manager running both should know UET and why the Google and Bing reports disagree. The bolt-on has the most room to miss an imported goal because the account appears to be producing results. Ask your provider to name the UET tag, the primary goal and the imported goals they turned off. Until they can, treat the reported CPA with suspicion.

5. Fees and reporting: are you paying for work you can see?

A small Bing budget makes percentage-of-spend pricing awkward. Ten percent of a $3,000 budget is $300 a month. At that fee, a provider may find it easier to leave the sync running than to read search terms every week. Agency menus range from flat $1,000 to $10,000 monthly fees to 10–20% of spend, with some flat minimums around $3,500. A UK Microsoft shop lists flat tiers starting at £145 a month, on a monthly rolling agreement with 31 days’ notice, with ad budget paid directly to Microsoft. groas lists Search Ads at $1,499 a month flat, with no percentage of spend, no setup fee and cancellation anytime.

I prefer a fee tied to the work rather than a percentage that rises when spend rises. But the invoice alone does not tell you whether anyone opened Bing. The action log is the receipt.

Most weak Bing reports I audit reduce the channel to one line: clicks, spend, blended CPA. That hides the decisions you paid for. A useful report names the Bing-only moves: which search terms were blocked, which imported bids were lowered, whether auto-sync stayed off, and what UET recorded versus what the CRM closed.

Boutiques tend to show that detail because Bing is their whole account. Bolt-ons can bury it on page four. One manager running both should show query winners and losers side by side, separate CPAs, and a note explaining any budget shift between platforms. Ask for last month’s Bing report before you sign. If the biggest listed change is “imported from Google,” walk away. If it shows ten Bing negatives added, three bids cut 30% and a network placement excluded, somebody opened the account. That is how I judge my own work now: no Bing-specific action log, no management fee earned.

Verdict: who should hire whom?

B2B and SaaS: pick the dual-channel manager

Microsoft Ads offers LinkedIn profile targeting by job function, industry and company, with bid modifiers from minus 90% to plus 900%. A boutique can set that up; a bolt-on may skip a lever with no Google equivalent to sync. The manager running both can start with roles that already convert on Google, then build and judge the Bing modifiers separately. Pair that with Bing bids and UET checked against the CRM, and the goal becomes pipeline rather than merely cheap clicks. Choose the boutique instead if your Google operator already supplies the cross-channel context and you need dedicated Microsoft execution.

Local lead gen: pick the dual-channel manager

Local Bing can fail on defaults rather than keywords. An import can leave location set to people in or searching for your area, reset scheduling to 24/7 and lose call extensions. That is how you buy out-of-area clicks at midnight with no call button. A manager who knows your Google geo winners and call hours can check those settings in one pass, then verify a separate Bing call conversion in UET. For the broader structure and call-tracking work, see Google Ads for local service businesses. Pick a boutique if you already have a strong Google operator in-house and need someone to handle Bing negatives weekly. The bolt-on loses hardest here: an unattended import can buy exactly the calls you do not want.

Ecommerce on Microsoft Shopping: pick the dual-channel manager

Microsoft Shopping needs attention to feed exclusions and query-level negatives. Coverage of Shopping and Performance Max is one way serious Bing operators are judged in agency roundups. A bolt-on can import Google feed campaigns whole, keep the same ROAS target and wonder why a $20k Google structure stalls at $2k on Bing. One manager can start with a separate Bing ROAS target 10 to 20 points lower, split hero SKUs from the long tail and judge whether cheaper clicks become margin. A boutique is the second choice if it has the account access and feed attention to do that work. The CPC gap only helps when the smaller auction gets its own targets.

The first-call test

Ask for a screen share: last week’s Bing search terms, the import settings screen and the conversion goals they turned off. A real operator can show Bing negatives added that week, explain the sync setting and identify the UET primary goal. A sync-and-forget provider talks around the screens and promises to mirror Google best practices. I stopped hiring anyone who could not show me that work in the first 15 minutes.

Specialist is the wrong test. Separate management is the test. For an advertiser already running Google, I would pick the manager who runs both channels as separate accounts, holds Bing to its own CPA and logs what changed. That is the setup groas offers Search Ads clients: Google and Bing worked side by side, one strategist and one flat fee rather than a percentage of spend. If you want to check your current provider first, run through what an agency should always do and count how many Bing lines are blank.