Bing Now Powers AOL Search: What Advertisers Need To Know

Here’s what’s changing in Bing Ads with the addition of AOL to the network.

The move is now official: Bing has taken over serving search results and ads for AOL from Google. Initially announced in June 2015, the 10-year deal affects all AOL search traffic worldwide and on all devices. For more details on what this means in terms of market share, be sure to read Greg Sterling’s coverage on Search Engine Land. Here’s a look at what the move means for those managing Bing Ads campaigns.

First, the Ad distribution section under Ad Group level settings now includes AOL along with Bing and Yahoo.

You can now also change ad group level network distribution within Bing Ads Editor. Whatever your settings are now, they won’t change, other than the fact that AOL is now included.

Bringing AOL into the fold also includes AOL’s syndicated search partners in relevant locations. You’ll have insights into this type of traffic that wasn’t available when AOL ads were served by Google. In the Website URL (Publisher) report, the URLs of AOL owned and operated websites will be shown on separate lines and not consolidated with Bing and Yahoo’s owned and operated websites listed under “Bing and Yahoo! Search Properties Only.” You might not necessarily know that the site is part of the AOL syndication, but you will be able to add individual sites to exclusion lists.

AOL search also now appears as a new value in the Network and Top vs. Other columns in reports (including those run from the Reporting API), such as the Keyword performance report and Campaign performance report, and AOL is listed with Bing and Yahoo syndicated search partners.

AOL traffic now factors into both Bing Ads Campaign and Keyword Planners, as well. For more details, see the Bing Ads blog post on the updates.