Most UK adviser firms run Google Ads, some run Meta, a few run LinkedIn. Almost none run Microsoft Ads - and that is a meaningful gap. Microsoft Advertising covers Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, AOL, Edge and Outlook, which together make up roughly 7-8% of UK search. The audience skews older and higher-income, and CPCs run 20-28% below Google for equivalent high-intent keywords. For pension, IHT and retirement niches - where buyer age correlates with AUM - the maths is often compelling.
Microsoft Advertising reaches a different slice of the UK search market. Edge is the default browser on Windows and Outlook is the default inbox for most corporate and retirement-age users. Bing is the default search engine on both. The result is an audience that skews meaningfully older than Google - 55% over 35 versus 48% on Google - and higher-income.
For regulated UK advisers this matters because the niches where Microsoft Ads is most competitive (pension consolidation, IHT planning, equity release, retirement annuities) are exactly the niches where buyer age correlates with assets under management. A pension-consolidation lead from a 58-year-old Edge user in the South East is not a cheaper lead - it is often a better lead.
Microsoft Ads auctions are less crowded than Google. Fewer advertisers bid on the same keywords, impression share is easier to hold at lower bids, and the overall CPC runs 20-28% below Google for equivalent high-intent advisory terms.
In UK financial services specifically, we see Microsoft Ads CPCs at £12-£42 for terms where Google sits at £18-£62. For a firm running £8k/month on Google paid search, shifting £1-2k of that into Microsoft typically adds 12-18% more leads at blended CPL 15-22% lower.
The caveat is volume. Microsoft holds ~8% of UK search, not 92%. You cannot replace Google with Microsoft. You complement Google with Microsoft.
Microsoft Advertising is structurally near-identical to Google Ads. Campaigns, ad groups, keywords, responsive search ads, audience signals, conversion tracking, negative keyword lists - the architecture maps one-for-one.
Microsoft even ships a one-click Import from Google Ads tool that brings across your entire account in minutes, preserving structure, ad copy, bids and targeting. First-time setup typically takes 2-3 hours end-to-end, including UET (Universal Event Tracking) deployment for conversion tracking.
The piece that does not translate is bidding strategy. Microsoft auctions are less competitive, so Google-identical bids typically under-spend. Set Microsoft-specific bids at 70-85% of Google equivalents on first launch, then let the data optimise from there.
Everything you already do for Google Ads from a compliance standpoint carries across to Microsoft. Capital-at-risk disclaimers, fair-clear-not-misleading copy, Section 21 approval for unregulated intermediaries, audit-trail of ad variations - all of it applies the same way.
Microsoft does not currently require the same financial services vertical certification that Google Ads does in the UK (introduced in 2021 for mortgage, loans and investment advertisers), though that may change. For firms that have already passed Google certification, the compliance artefacts you produced in that process are reusable.
One operational tip: keep your compliance-approved creative library consistent across both platforms. Running different ad copy on Google and Microsoft because of platform character limits or format differences is where compliance drift happens.
Microsoft Ads is strongest on: pension consolidation, pension transfer, SIPP, IHT planning, equity release, annuities, retirement income planning, remortgage (60+ borrowers), care fees planning, long-term care, and high-intent B2B terms like IFA marketing and adviser compliance.
It is weaker on: mobile-heavy awareness campaigns, younger-demographic niches (FTB mortgages, protection for under-35s, crypto-adjacent products), and hyper-competitive brand terms where Google already owns the impression share.
The Microsoft Audience Network (native placements on Outlook.com, MSN and Edge) uses LinkedIn profile signals for job-title and company targeting. For B2B advisory firms targeting accountants, solicitors or HR directors, MSAN is often a more cost-effective alternative to LinkedIn Ads for broad reach, though LinkedIn remains the precision instrument for named-account work.
The cleanest way to introduce Microsoft Ads is a 90-day parallel test against your existing Google Search account. Start with your top three converting Google campaigns, import them into Microsoft, set bids at 75% of Google equivalent, and give them the same budget share you would give to an equivalent Google expansion.
Measure four things at day 30, 60 and 90: (1) CPC versus Google, (2) impression share, (3) CPL blended across both platforms, (4) lead quality proxied by MQL rate and time-to-appointment. Do not judge Microsoft on raw lead volume - it will always be smaller - judge it on blended economics.
In our UK adviser client base, firms that run this test see a 12-18% increase in total paid-search leads at a 15-22% lower blended CPL. That is a materially better return than most Google-only expansion strategies deliver after the same 90 days.
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