Bing Ads To Launch In Australia And New Zealand

Bing announced today that it will be launching Bing Ads in Australia and New Zealand. Australia site, BandT.com, is reporting that the launch date will be in July.

Bing Ads is partnering with Mi9, a digital media company in Australia that is a joint venture between Microsoft and Nine Entertainment Co. Bing’s search ads will be added to Mi9’s advertising capabilities which already includes advertising through Microsoft Advertising Exchange, Windows 8,  Xbox and the Microsoft Media Network.

Google AdWords is the market leader in search advertising in both New Zealand and Australia. Steve Sirich, Microsoft’s General Manager in the Online Services Division, (and keynote speaker at SMX Australia this week) told BandT.com:

We see it as a marathon not a sprint against Google … we’re aware they’re the industry leader. But we think we can differentiate from them, because we see that search is evolving from just a destination experience into more of a platform one that powers multiple services.

Bing claims it currently has 5.5 million monthly users in Australia.