Seeing Double: Yahoo, Bing Search Ads Show Duplicate Copy In Headlines And Ad Text

Last week, an astute Matt Umbro noticed that search ads on Bing and Yahoo were showing description line one of the ad copy in both the ad text and ad titles.

When the first description line is formatted with punctuation at the end, Bing Ads typically shows that as a Long Ad Title in top line ads. What’s new now is that that copy is being shown twice: in the long ad title and then again in the ad copy itself.

Eric Couch, who recently joined the paid search team at Microsoft from Hanapin Marketing, told Umbro that the new duplication has proven to produce higher click-through rates.

Reached for comment, a Microsoft spokesperson told us,

“We are constantly evaluating opportunities to increase click volume for our customers around optimal Long Ad Title treatments while retaining the advertisers message. While individual advertiser results may vary, in general we are seeing Bing Ads Long Ad Titles treatments improve ad CTR by 10-15 percent”.

It’s not clear if the change went into effect broadly before last week, but you may want to look back at your CTRs to see if you can see an impact on top line ads and make note of the change.

About The Author

Ginny Marvin

Ginny Marvin is Third Door Media’s Editor-in-Chief, running the day to day editorial operations across all publications and overseeing paid media coverage. Ginny Marvin writes about paid digital advertising and analytics news and trends for Search Engine Land, Marketing Land and MarTech Today. With more than 15 years of marketing experience, Ginny has held both in-house and agency management positions. She can be found on Twitter as @ginnymarvin.