Bing Partner Program shifting to calendar-year qualifications

Bing Ads is making a change to how it determines status in its Bing Partner Program, shifting it to a calendar-year evaluation. The change is scheduled to take place in January 2019.

The program consists of three tiers – Elite, Select and Partner — and includes resellers, agencies and technology providers that meet certain spend and certification criteria.

Why you should care

Tier status for Bing partners will now be based on meeting the program requirements, based on a formula including billings and output, from January 1 to December 31 of the year. As Bing notes, the new schedule better aligns with the industry standard and advertisers’ own own billing schedules.

Partners can move up or down tier levels depending on the results of an annual performance review. Benefits increase as a member’s status moves up.

With a calendar-year focus, agencies currently enrolled in or looking to join the Bing Partner Program will likely find it easier to gauge their potential tier status in the program.

More about the news

• The change applies to all agency, channel and technology partners in the program.
• Bing Ads also announced a new benefit of membership in the Bing Ads Partner Community on LinkedIn, where it says advertisers “can be the first to know about latest announcements, get access to the Microsoft Bing Partner team and subject matter experts and network with other Bing Partners.”
• Members of the loyalty partner program gain access to training, exclusive marketing and sales resources and technical support in addition to a Partner Program badge and inclusion in the Partner Directory. It’s available in 20 countries.