AdCenter, now called Bing Ads, is a pay-per-click service with a bunch of different cool features, including dayparting and demographic based bidding. Compared to Google Adwords, adCenter is actually pretty new and recent. As a result, most of adCenter?s prices are relatively low.
What is AdCenter?
AdCenter functioned similarly to other search ad platforms: businesses chose keywords relevant to their offerings, set budgets, and submitted ad text. When someone searched using those terms on Bing (or its ad network), Microsoft ran an auction to decide which ads would show and in what order. The winners were determined by a combination of bid amount and ad relevance (how well the ad matched the user’s intention).
Over time, Bing integrated AdCenter into its broader Bing Ads / Microsoft Advertising system. Nonetheless, the concept remains important: the performance of an ad campaign depends not just on how much you bid, but also how well your keywords, ad text, and landing page match the user’s needs.
What made AdCenter distinct was its targeting options—such as demographic bidding and dayparting (setting ads to run at specific hours of the day)—giving advertisers control over when and to whom their ads showed. Because many businesses were less familiar with Bing than Google, competition was often lower, making some keywords less expensive on AdCenter than on Google Ads.
While AdCenter as a standalone brand is less emphasized today, the principles behind it live on in Microsoft Advertising tools and many other ad platforms: quality, relevance, bidding, and targeting.
The AdCenter brand has been mostly rebranded or integrated into Microsoft Advertising and Bing Ads. The underlying ad concepts continue under those systems.
AdCenter (Microsoft) often had lower competition and slightly different targeting options (demographics, times) compared to Google Ads. It also served Bing’s audience, which might differ in behaviors and cost.
It varies by industry and keyword, but often CPCs in the Bing/Microsoft network were lower because of less competition.