At a time when competitor Google is focusing intensely on mobile and local, Microsoft’s Bing is sharing plans for ad products that would go toward evening the score between the two biggest search players in the U.S.

The company will introduce radius targeting for search ads, allowing advertisers to choose a specific five to 100 mile radius around an address. This will be available in all adCenter markets in “the coming months,” according to a blog post by Dennis Glavin, the group product manager and lead on local search advertising for Microsoft. Google already offers similar targeting capabilities in AdWords.

Additionally, Bing will ad local search ad attributes (known at Google as extensions) that let advertisers add a merchant’s address or phone number to their ad. These will be served to queries identified as local, and within ads, both on the PC and on mobile devices. The new attributes feature will begin being rolled out in adCenter in the second half of the year, the company said.

Image via Microsoft

Just last month, Bing launched its Business Portal for local merchants, which lets them claim and enhance listings with additional information, including deals.

Related Topics: Microsoft: adCenter | Microsoft: Bing Maps & Local | Microsoft: Bing Mobile

About The Author: Pamela Parker is a contributing editor for Search Engine Land and Executive Features Editor at Marketing Land. She’s a well-respected authority on digital marketing, having reported and written on the subject since 1998, including a stint as managing editor of ClickZ. She’s also worked to help monetize independent publishers’ sites at Federated Media Publishing. She blogs about media and marketing at The River and about cooking, gardening and parenthood at Free Range. She can be found on Twitter as @pamelaparker. See more articles by Pamela Parker

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