In early February, Google introduced Enhanced Campaigns, which it described as an “evolution” of AdWords. While embraced by some advertisers, others do not like the direction Google has elected to take.

Microsoft, Google’s competitor in the space and a frequent critic of numerous Google practices, has now laid out its policy aimed at attracting advertisers who don’t like Google’s new model.

Which model do you prefer: Google’s or Bing’s? Let us know in the comments.

If you’re still unfamiliar with Enhanced Campaigns, here’s a look:

David Pann, GM of Microsoft’s Search Network, spoke to advertisers at a San Francisco Forum to address concerns Microsoft Advertising has heard around whether Bing Ads will go down a similar path as Google with Enhanced Campaigns. This is a legitimate concern, considering how Microsoft has been openly adapting other models that Google has embraced.

Microsoft is not going down the Enhanced Campaigns path ,however.

“While Enhanced Campaigns may seem to provide greater management efficiencies and improve mobile traffic, our customers have expressed worry that this change may in fact bring inefficiencies for more sophisticated advertisers or those with specific targeting needs,” a spokesperson for Microsoft tells WebProNews, echoing sentiments shared in a blog post from Pann.

During the forum, Pann expressed a commitment to “making it simple for small business advertisers to participate across devices while at the same time, enabling more sophisticated advertisers to have the fine grain targeting controls they require.”

Pann expands in the blog post:

At Bing Ads, we believe very strongly in giving advertisers the tools and flexibility to control their spending, target the most relevant audiences, and ensure they can get the best return on investment. We do not believe bundling mobile, desktop and tablet advertising together in an opaque manner is in the best interests of our customers.

Our own customers have been concerned whether we would sacrifice control for convenience, and our answer is no.

We are committed to reducing friction by providing advertisers with the transparency and controls needed to maximize campaign effectiveness. We strive to make it simple for small business advertisers to participate across devices and more sophisticated advertisers to have the fine grain targeting controls they require. Our stated goal of providing advertisers the ability to do in 15 minutes what it takes them 45 minutes to do on Google, should not – and does not – come with any caveats or loss of control.

Bing Ads believes in building long-term trust through consistency, expectancy and transparency.We know budgets and resources are limited – we want to enable our customers, not hinder them.

Bing Ads Platform Manager Dare Obasanjo discusses Microsoft’s policy in a separate post.

“With enhanced campaigns, fine-grained targeting by operating system, device model and carrier is no longer available,” writes Obasanjo. “More importantly, tablets and desktop PCs are now treated as a single entity. It is no longer possible to target an iPad or Kindle Fire user differently from a user of on Dell or HP desktop PC.”

“Another elimination of flexibility also occurs when it comes to targeting users on mobile devices. All search marketing campaigns in AdWords are now desktop/tablet targeted campaigns. The ability to target mobile devices is only available by augmenting certain aspects of a desktop/tablet campaign.”

Microsoft says it will be updating its product to ensure AdWords advertisers can “seamlessly” transition between both products, despite Bing’s absence of Enhanced Campaigns-like functionality.

At least there’s not a “Scroogled” campaign this time.

As mentioned, some advertisers see the value of what Google’s doing, and certainly Google thinks there is plenty of good reason to operate this way.

Will you be switching from Google to Bing? Do you think Enhanced Campaigns are good or bad for advertisers? Let us know in the comments.