We tend to focus our attention more towards Google AdWords here on PPC Hero, but many of us also use Bing Ads on a daily basis. One thing that I find a bit more challenging when using Bing is pulling reports. The process seems to be integrated better into the tabs in AdWords. Bing has recently announced some changes, though, to help make the reporting process more effective.
What Has Changed
Within Bing Ads, there are various types of reports that you can pull for your data. For each report, you can specify Attributes and Performance Statistics you want included in the data. Attributes are items such as campaign, ad group, keyword match type, ad text, etc. Performance statistics give you data on how the campaign/ad group/keyword is performing, including cost, conversions, CTR, and more. Bing updated both the Attributes and Performance statistics to be more streamlined and consistent from report to report. Previously, the values you could choose changed depending on which report you were pulling.
Here are the Attributes that have been added and/or updated to each report:
- Bid Match Type
- Delivered match type
- Network
- Top vs other
- Device type
- Device OS
Here is the updated list of Performance Statistics you can now pull for any report:
- Assists
- Conversions
- Conversion rate (%)
- Extended cost
- Revenue
- ROAS (Return on Ad Spend)
- CPA
- Cost per assist
- Revenue per conversion
- Revenue per assist
Bing has also added a report – Enhanced Change History. This new report allows you to get a more comprehensive idea of how your changes affect your account by including additional items in the report, such as:
- Change to keyword match type
- Change to location extension
- Change to call extension
- Change to keyword parameter values
Another update is the new “sticky” settings. There are various settings you have to define when pulling a report: Unit of Time, Date Range, Format, Account, etc. Most of these settings have a default and it resets when you go from one report to another. With the new “sticky” version, your setting remain the same as you click through different reports.
There are some other minor changes including the number of custom reports, time range for Impression share fields, and being able to include multiple accounts in a single report.
Why It Matters
The update to the Bing reports isn’t a major game changer, but there are some improvements to the consistency and ease of pulling reports. Not being able to include certain Attributes or Performance Statistics in some reports has been a hinderance at times. The more data you have, the better overall picture you can get and the more detailed you can be in your analysis.
To me, though, the most beneficial update is with the “sticky” settings. While this may seem like a simple change, it is beneficial to Account Managers pulling various types of reports. On multiple occasions I have pulled a keyword report with specific settings I need, only to then pull an ad report and realize that all my settings went back to default. Instead of pulling summary statistics for the last 30 days, I ended up with daily statistics for the current month.
Obviously, it doesn’t take long to fix it and pull another report, but having those settings stay the same when going between reports will save a little frustration and having to pull the report a second (or even third) time.
All in all, the change is minor. But, it shows signs that the Bing reports are moving in the right direction by becoming cleaner, more in-depth, and more consistent throughout the various reports.
