The Untapped Opportunity on Microsoft Advertising

Engineered hardwood installation is a high-value service sold to homeowners with the budget and intent to invest in their property. On Google Ads, that same buyer profile drives intense competition. National aggregators, flooring retailers, and well-funded local contractors bid the cost per click past $30, $40, sometimes $50 for terms like "engineered hardwood floor installers near me." The auction is crowded, and the cost to acquire a single qualified lead keeps climbing.

On Microsoft Advertising, the same category presents a fundamentally different picture. The same search queries exist, the same purchase intent is there, but the competitive pressure is a fraction of what it is on Google. For the engineered hardwood contractor who runs Google Ads at $35 per click, the opportunity on Bing is often a functionally identical lead at $9 to $14. That differential, at scale, can mean tens of thousands of dollars saved per year while reaching buyers your competitors are completely ignoring.

Who Searches for Engineered Hardwood Flooring on Bing

Microsoft Advertising serves search traffic across Bing, Yahoo, MSN, and partner properties including DuckDuckGo. The combined network captures roughly 25 to 30 percent of desktop search volume in the United States, and that volume skews toward a demographic that aligns perfectly with engineered hardwood installation projects.

The Microsoft search audience is older on average than Google users. The core homeowner segment searching for "engineered wood floor installation cost" or "hardwood flooring installers near me" on Bing is typically 40 to 65 years old, with above-average household income and a higher homeownership rate. These are buyers who have lived in their home for years, have the equity and cash flow to reinvest in it, and are more likely to move forward with a premium flooring choice like engineered hardwood instead of budget laminate alternatives.

This demographic also tends to use Bing because it is the default search engine on many corporate and home Windows devices, on Microsoft Edge, and on devices where users have not changed the default. That means the homeowner researching a kitchen renovation or whole-home flooring upgrade while at their desk or on a Windows laptop often lands on Microsoft's search engine without ever thinking about which one they are using. Their intent is the same as a Google searcher, but the advertiser landscape they encounter is far thinner.

For the engineered hardwood contractor, that is a direct demographic match: an older, financially established homeowner actively researching premium flooring installation. The same buyer profile on Bing can be reached at a substantially lower cost per lead simply because fewer flooring companies are bidding against you.

Bing Platform Features That Directly Benefit Flooring Contractors

Microsoft Advertising offers a set of ad capabilities and targeting options that go beyond copy-paste parity with Google. Several of these features create specific advantages for an engineered hardwood installation business.

LinkedIn Profile Targeting

Microsoft Advertising is the only major search platform that allows you to layer LinkedIn profile data onto your search campaigns. You can target by job function, industry, company size, and seniority. For a residential-focused flooring contractor, this becomes immediately valuable if you also serve commercial clients: property managers, facilities directors, general contractors, interior designers, and architects who specify flooring for office buildouts, multi-family properties, or hospitality projects.

Even for a purely residential contractor, the ability to target by LinkedIn function can be useful. You might bid higher when the searcher is an interior designer, a real estate agent, or a custom home builder who is searching on behalf of a client. These searchers often make quicker decisions and lead to higher-value projects compared to a DIY homeowner browsing for information.

Microsoft Audience Network

Beyond search text ads, Microsoft Advertising extends your campaigns into native and display placements across MSN.com, Microsoft Edge new tabs, Outlook.com, and partner sites. This audience network lets you reach homeowners who have previously shown interest in flooring or home improvement content, retargeting them or introducing your business in a lower-funnel context. For an engineered hardwood installation campaign, you can stay visible to the same prospect across multiple touchpoints without having to set up a completely separate display campaign.

Import from Google Ads

For a contractor already running Google Ads, the Microsoft platform allows a direct import of existing campaigns. SBS uses this import as a starting point, not a final solution. The import preserves campaign structure, ad copy, and keyword lists, but it requires careful adjustments to match types, bidding strategies, and audience settings to perform optimally on Bing's network. The import saves setup time and ensures your Bing campaigns reflect the same proven messaging you already use on Google.

Responsive Search Ads and Ad Assets

Microsoft Advertising supports Responsive Search Ads, call extensions, location extensions, image extensions, and sitelink extensions at parity with Google. You can run call-only campaigns, track conversions with Microsoft's UET tag, and import offline conversions if your sales process involves a phone consultation and in-home estimate. For a flooring installation business where the lead often starts with a phone call, robust call extension and call tracking integration is essential.

The Competitive Landscape on Bing for Engineered Hardwood Installation

Across most home service and trade categories, the number of active bidders on Microsoft Advertising is a fraction of the number on Google Ads. In many metros, you may face three to five competitors on Bing for a keyword that has 15 to 20 bidders on Google. The national home services aggregators that dominate Google's flooring-related ad auctions tend to allocate their ad budgets almost entirely to Google, leaving the Microsoft network underserved.

Practically, this means several things for an engineered hardwood contractor:

• Lower average cost per click, often 40 to 60 percent less than equivalent Google bids.
• Easier attainment of the top-of-page position, even with a more conservative bid.
• Higher impression share for branded and non-branded queries, since fewer competitors are fighting for the ad slots.
• Lower minimum bids required for ad extensions like call buttons and location extensions to appear alongside your ad.
• Less competition on exact-match and phrase-match keywords that have been bid up aggressively on Google.
• A cleaner auction where your ad is more likely to be the only flooring-specific result, rather than buried among multiple aggregators, retailers, and other contractors.

The CPC differential is most pronounced on high-intent, long-tail queries that indicate a lead ready to schedule an estimate. Searches like "cost to install engineered hardwood in living room" or "engineered wood floor contractor near me with free estimate" can cost $20 to $50 on Google in competitive zip codes. On Bing, those same queries often clear at $6 to $15, sometimes less.

How SBS Structures a Bing Campaign for Engineered Hardwood Installers

SBS approaches Microsoft Advertising for a flooring contractor as a distinct paid search channel, not as a duplicate of Google that can run on autopilot. The campaign structure is built around how people search on the Bing network and how the bidding environment rewards data-driven optimization.

Import, Audit, and Adapt

When a client already has Google Ads campaigns performing well, SBS imports those campaigns into Microsoft Advertising. The import is the starting point. We:

• Audit all keyword match types. Google's close variants behave differently on Bing, and phrase-match keyword volume often skews broader. We tighten or expand match types based on actual search query data from Bing.
• Review the imported negative keyword lists and add Bing-specific negatives. Searches that appear on Bing but rarely on Google (such as queries through older browser interfaces or specific partner network patterns) often need their own exclusions.
• Adjust location targeting and radius settings to match the contractor's service area exactly and to exclude regions that accidentally bleed in from the imported Google settings.

Bid Strategy Selection

Bing's Smart Bidding options (Maximize Clicks, Target CPA, Target ROAS, and Enhanced CPC) calibrate differently than Google's because the conversion volume on Bing is usually lower. SBS typically starts with Enhanced CPC while the campaign accumulates conversion data, then transitions to Target CPA once we have enough lead volume to let the algorithm optimize efficiently. For a flooring contractor who generates 10 to 30 leads per month from Bing, Target CPA generally becomes reliable after six to eight weeks of consistent data.

Budgeting Across Both Platforms

Microsoft Advertising should not cannibalize Google Ads spend, nor should it be an afterthought funded by leftover budget. SBS recommends a dedicated Bing budget that is proportional to the cost-per-lead opportunity. In many cases, a flooring contractor spending $3,000 per month on Google Ads can add $600 to $900 on Bing and capture an incremental 15 to 25 percent more leads at a lower blended CPA. We track each platform separately in reporting so the client sees exactly what Bing delivers.

Campaign Structure for Flooring Services

For an engineered hardwood installation contractor, we often break campaigns into service-specific ad groups:

• Engineered hardwood installation (primary)
• Hardwood floor refinishing (if offered)
• Wood floor repair
• Commercial flooring installation (if applicable)
• Branded search (your company name)

This structure keeps ad copy tightly aligned with the search query and allows more precise budget allocation. Each ad group uses localized ad copy that mentions the city, neighborhood, or county served.

Reviews, Trust Signals, and Bing Places

Bing's search results increasingly surface business ratings and review counts directly within the organic listings and inside the ad unit itself. For a home service contractor, these trust signals matter immensely. A homeowner comparing two ads for "engineered hardwood installer" will gravitate toward the one that shows a star rating and review count.

SBS ensures that your Bing Places for Business profile is fully complete and accurately linked to your Microsoft Advertising account. This includes:

• Correct business name, address, and phone number matching exactly across all citations.
• Up-to-date categories: "Flooring Contractor," "Wood Floor Installation Service," and so on.
• Photos of completed engineered hardwood projects.
• Active review generation that feeds ratings from Bing, Yelp, and other aggregators that Bing surfaces.

When the Microsoft Advertising account is linked to Bing Places, review extensions can display your rating directly beneath the ad text. This simple step often improves click-through rate by 10 to 20 percent, especially in a category where trust is a prerequisite for a phone call.

Mistakes Flooring Contractors Make When Trying Bing Ads

Even when a contractor recognizes the Bing opportunity, a few common errors undercut performance. Steering clear of these saves budget and accelerates results.

• Importing Google Ads campaigns without cleaning up match types. Google's broad match and phrase match variants often pull in irrelevant queries on Bing. SBS routinely finds imported campaigns wasting 20 to 30 percent of spend on mismatched searches that should be negative keywords.
• Ignoring LinkedIn audience targeting entirely. Contractors who could be bidding on "engineered wood flooring commercial installation" while targeting property managers or interior designers on LinkedIn miss a low-competition entry point into the commercial side of their trade.
• Setting the daily budget too low for Smart Bidding to work. Bing campaigns need enough conversions per week for Target CPA to optimize. A contractor running $15 per day and hoping for automated magic will be disappointed. We set budgets at a level that generates meaningful data.
• Neglecting the Microsoft Audience Network. Some contractors limit campaigns to search text only, leaving reach on the table. The audience network can retarget website visitors or reach in-market audiences for home renovation on properties like MSN, often at a very low CPM.
• Failing to separate Bing conversion tracking from Google. Without distinct tracking, the contractor can't see which platform produces leads at what cost, and budget decisions are made in the dark. SBS always implements Microsoft's UET tag alongside existing Google conversion actions.

Contact SBS to Add Microsoft Advertising to Your Paid Search Mix

SBS runs both Google Ads and Microsoft Advertising for engineered hardwood installation contractors who want to stop overpaying for leads on a single platform. The Bing network will not replace the volume of Google, and it does not need to. What it provides is a complementary stream of qualified leads, often at less than half the cost per acquisition, from homeowners your competitors are not reaching.

SBS builds campaigns that work together across both search engines. We import, adapt, and optimize specifically for the Bing audience and bidding environment. Every lead source is tracked separately, calls and form submissions are attributed to the correct platform, and budgets are rebalanced based on real cost-per-lead performance.

Get in touch with SBS to launch a Microsoft Advertising presence for your engineered hardwood installation business, or to audit an existing Bing account that is not converting the way it should.