Microsoft/Bing Ads dashboards tell Cybersecurity advertisers what they spent and how many conversions they got, but not how many of those conversions were a bot filling out a demo request form. Lunio built its benchmark layer specifically to close that gap, measuring the invalid traffic sitting inside the numbers every other benchmark source reports at face value. Find out how much of your Microsoft/Bing Ads budget is being wasted →
Microsoft/Bing Ads runs a smaller, more concentrated auction than Google for Cybersecurity keywords, with fewer enterprise vendors bidding aggressively and a desktop-heavy, corporate audience that skews toward genuine IT decision-makers during business hours. That concentration cuts both ways: lower competition density can mean real CPC savings, but low click volume also means Smart Bidding strategies like Target CPA and Maximise Conversions take longer to learn, leaving campaigns more exposed to any single bad data point, including a bot-completed demo request.
| Campaign Type | IVT Rate | CPC |
|---|---|---|
| Microsoft Search Network | 10.32% platform-wide (per Lunio's Invalid Traffic Rates by Ad Platform report); Software & IT advertisers average 6.48% across platforms (per the Lunio 2026 Global Invalid Traffic Report) | $1.95 (WordStream Technology proxy, 2017 data, last updated December 2023) |
| Microsoft Audience Network | 10.32% platform-wide, with structurally elevated exposure on partner site inventory | £0.50 (CloudSwitched UK cross-vertical Audience Network average, published March 2026) |
Bing's user base skews older, more affluent, and more corporate than Google's, with Edge as the default browser across many enterprise desktop fleets. For Cybersecurity advertisers this generally means higher-quality search intent on desktop during work hours, while mobile traffic on Microsoft's network is a smaller share of volume and converts less predictably for demo request campaigns aimed at CISOs and IT directors.
No publisher currently breaks out Cybersecurity-specific CPC by device on Microsoft/Bing Ads, so this section stays qualitative. Because Microsoft's network over-indexes on desktop, corporate-network traffic, Cybersecurity advertisers typically see their best-performing clicks concentrated there rather than on mobile, which is the inverse of what most consumer verticals experience on Bing. Treat any blended CPC figure with this in mind: a campaign running heavy mobile bid adjustments for a Cybersecurity audience is likely paying for volume rather than qualified decision-maker traffic.
| Metric | Average | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| CTR | 2.4% median (Benchmarketing, Cybersecurity, reviewed March 2026, Q1 2023–Q4 2024); 2.40% cross-industry Technology proxy (WordStream, 2017 data) | A CTR tracking near or below the 2.4% median is plausible for genuine human engagement; a CTR spiking well above the quartile band, especially on Audience Network placements, warrants an IVT check before it's read as a win. |
| ROAS | 4.2x Search / 3.1x Audience Network, cross-vertical (CloudSwitched, published March 2026) | These figures are not Cybersecurity-specific and assume short conversion windows; enterprise Cybersecurity's 3–12 month sales cycles make standard ROAS structurally unreliable, and pipeline-to-spend ratio is the more meaningful measure. Any ROAS calculation that includes bot-completed demo requests in its revenue attribution will overstate real performance. |
For this combination, every CPC, CTR, and ROAS figure above is drawn from external sources, WordStream, Benchmarketing, and CloudSwitched, and clearly labelled with its vintage and vertical-proxy status. The invalid traffic rate uses Lunio's verified platform-level figure (10.32%) alongside the Software & IT category average from the Lunio 2026 Global Invalid Traffic Report as the closest available cross-platform reference point. This page will be updated with observed Microsoft/Bing Ads × Cybersecurity figures as Lunio's dataset expands. Calculate how much you're losing →
Cybersecurity advertisers on Microsoft/Bing Ads typically run three distinct placement types, each with a different invalid traffic exposure profile. Understanding which one is absorbing the most risk matters more for budget allocation than chasing a single blended CPA target.
Microsoft Search Network is where almost all Cybersecurity acquisition budget runs. It carries the platform's overall 10.32% IVT rate (per Lunio's Invalid Traffic Rates by Ad Platform report), but search intent is generally the cleanest inventory available on Bing. The practical risk here is less about the click itself and more about what happens after it: a bot that navigates directly to a landing page and completes a demo request form registers as a conversion in Universal Event Tracking without ever generating a billed, anomalous click, which means it can pass straight through Microsoft's native filtering.
Microsoft Audience Network extends into MSN, Outlook.com, Edge, and third-party publisher partner inventory, and it carries a materially different exposure profile than core search. Partner site placements have less rigorous traffic quality control than the Bing SERP itself, and CPM-based buying on this inventory means an advertiser can be paying for impressions and clicks on properties with limited visibility into traffic composition. For a Cybersecurity brand running account-based retargeting through the Audience Network, this is the placement to watch most closely for inflated engagement that doesn't convert into real pipeline.
LinkedIn Profile Targeting is Microsoft's unique overlay, letting advertisers restrict a Search campaign to job titles, industries, and company sizes pulled from LinkedIn data, bidding on "SIEM platform" or "managed detection and response" but only serving ads to IT directors and CISOs at companies above a given headcount. Layering this targeting generally raises effective CPC on the qualified segment while suppressing spend on unqualified traffic, and it tends to concentrate rather than eliminate IVT risk: a sophisticated bot built to mimic a corporate IT professional's browsing pattern is a more valuable target for fraud than a generic consumer bot, precisely because the qualified audience is where the budget and the ACV sit. Microsoft Copilot Ads are an emerging placement type worth watching but currently carry no published benchmark data for any vertical.
| Country | IVT Rate |
|---|---|
| United States | 8.44% |
| United Kingdom | 7.97% |
| Germany | 6.34% |
| France | 6.63% |
| Australia | 7.87% |
| Canada | 6.29% |
Figures above are verified country-level invalid traffic rates across all verticals, not Cybersecurity-specific, but they're useful for geo planning. The United States combines the largest Cybersecurity buyer pool with the highest country-level IVT rate on this list at 8.44%, making it the double-risk market: highest spend concentration and highest invalid traffic exposure simultaneously. The UK sits close behind at 7.97%. Germany (6.34%) and Canada (6.29%) offer relatively cleaner traffic conditions, which is worth factoring into budget allocation for Cybersecurity vendors running multi-region demand generation. See Lunio's ad fraud data by country for the full breakdown across platforms.
Take a mid-market Cybersecurity vendor running $20,000 a month on Microsoft/Bing Ads, or $240,000 a year. At the platform's overall 10.32% invalid traffic rate (per Lunio's Invalid Traffic Rates by Ad Platform report), that's roughly $24,768 a year disappearing into clicks and form fills that never came from a real buyer. Cybersecurity's lead-gen model makes this worse, not better: lead-gen campaigns experience 32.07% higher invalid traffic rates than transactional campaigns, per the Lunio 2026 Global Invalid Traffic Report, and demo request forms have no payment friction to filter out a synthetic submission the way an ecommerce checkout does.
The downstream cost compounds from there. A fake demo request in an enterprise Cybersecurity sales motion typically triggers SDR outreach, AE scheduling, and pre-sales engineering time before anyone realises the lead was never real, human resource cost stacked on top of the wasted media spend. This is the same pattern Lunio found with Canto, a B2B SaaS advertiser where Lunio eliminated 79.17% of invalid traffic, recovered $67,400 a month in wasted spend, and unlocked $350,000 in new pipeline within two months of cleaning the conversion signal feeding Smart Bidding.
The calculation above uses platform-level estimates. A Lunio traffic audit runs against your actual Microsoft/Bing Ads account data and returns your observed invalid traffic rate, not a cross-vertical approximation.
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A demo request that converts at a 40–65% demo-to-opportunity rate and a 20–40% opportunity-to-close rate can represent $25,000 to $500,000 in contract value, which is exactly why the integrity of that single conversion event matters more in Cybersecurity than almost any other vertical. Benchmarks are a starting point for planning a Microsoft/Bing Ads programme, not proof that the budget is working. Every CPC, CTR, and CPA figure on this page, and every one published anywhere else, is a pre-IVT number, and the gap between what the dashboard reports and what your sales team actually receives is measurable. Lunio exists to measure that gap and feed Smart Bidding a cleaner signal instead of a contaminated one.
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No source publishes an observed Cybersecurity-specific CPC for Microsoft/Bing Ads. The closest reference is WordStream's Technology vertical average of $1.95 (2017 data, last updated December 2023), though Cybersecurity's narrow, high-intent audience for terms like SIEM and managed detection and response likely pushes blended CPCs into a $4–$8 planning range in practice.
Benchmarketing's Cybersecurity-specific engagement rate sits at a median of 2.4%, rising to 4.9% on retargeting and falling to 0.8% on cold prospecting. A CTR well above that range, particularly on Microsoft Audience Network placements where cross-vertical CTR typically runs near 0.45%, is more often a sign of invalid engagement than genuine interest.
Microsoft's automated filters catch General Invalid Traffic, such as known crawlers and data centre traffic, before billing closes. Sophisticated Invalid Traffic, including bots that complete demo request forms without generating a billed click, passes these filters and still registers as a conversion, which trains Target CPA and Maximise Conversions to bid for more of the same contaminated traffic pattern.
The United States carries the highest verified country-level invalid traffic rate among major Cybersecurity markets at 8.44%, followed by the UK at 7.97%. Continental European markets measure lower, with France at 6.63% and Germany at 6.34%, making them relatively cleaner traffic environments for the same budget.