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Rachel Billick-Smith , Senior Digital Strategist
Catch Rachel hanging from the ceiling while practicing her moves during an aerial exercise class on the silks or lyra. She has a passion for all things K-pop, Lady Gaga, dance and her Siamese cat, Sammy. Not only is she nimble, but has also dabbled in powerlifting (double the protein in her Chipotle bowl).
Don’t worry, there’s plenty of balance displayed during working hours while she nimbly supports both paid search and paid social efforts for clients.
January 29, 2026 | Gain Knowledge
If your PPC strategy only focuses on Google, you’re missing valuable clicks and conversions. Microsoft Ads (formerly Bing Ads) give marketers a cost-effective way to reach both an older, higher-income audience, as well as a B2B audience, across Bing Search, Yahoo, AOL, MSN, Outlook, and the Microsoft Audience Network. With lower CPCs and unique LinkedIn targeting layers, Microsoft Ads can quietly deliver a stronger return on ad spend (ROAS) when managed strategically.
This article is a long one. Feel free to use this table of contents to jump to sections that are most interesting to you!
Microsoft Ads is a pay-per-click platform that allows businesses to display ads across Bing Search, Yahoo, AOL, and the Microsoft Audience Network. Originally launched as Bing Ads, it has evolved into a full advertising ecosystem spanning text, shopping, and native placements that capture high-intent traffic at often lower costs than Google.
This platform operates on an auction-based system similar to Google Ads. Advertisers bid on keywords and pay only when users click their ads, making it ideal for businesses focused on lead generation, ecommerce sales, and localized service reach.
Your ads can appear in multiple locations, each offering distinct targeting opportunities:
Each placement has a different intent level. Search campaigns reach users actively looking for a solution, while Audience Network placements focus on discovery and awareness.
Microsoft Ads are ideal for:
Microsoft’s audience tends to be slightly older, with higher income and desktop usage—key factors that translate to higher purchase power.
When branded and core non-brand terms start to get expensive in Google, Microsoft Ads often becomes the pressure valve that lets you keep scaling without blowing up your CPA. For businesses running integrated paid strategies, this mix of lower CPC potential, older, higher-income demographics, and LinkedIn targeting layers makes Microsoft Ads a natural complement to Google rather than a replacement.
For deeper help implementing campaigns, consider partnering with a Microsoft Ads management team to streamline setup and ensure strong tracking from day one.
When marketers compare Microsoft Ads and Google Ads, the real question usually is not which platform is better. The question is how each one fits into your mix.
Google will almost always win on sheer volume and reach. Microsoft often wins on cost efficiency and B2B precision, especially on desktop and older, higher income users. Used together, they give you more coverage across the funnel and a second channel to lean on when Google CPCs climb.
In most accounts we manage, Google still holds the largest share of the budget, often in the 70 to 90 percent range of total search spend. Microsoft plays an important supporting role by driving incremental conversions at lower CPCs, improving desktop performance, and delivering stronger results in industries that skew older or more professional.
A simple rule of thumb: if Microsoft can spend at a similar or better CPA or ROAS than Google, let it. Increase its share until performance starts to taper off or you hit impression share constraints.
In practice, Microsoft Ads works best as a way to deepen coverage of the same high-intent themes that already perform well on Google, not as a playground for entirely new keywords. If your branded and core non-brand terms are profitable on Google, mirroring them in Microsoft is usually the fastest way to drive incremental conversions.
This is especially true in B2B, professional services, and higher-ticket ecommerce, where desktop research and older, higher-income users play a larger role. When those patterns show up clearly in your Google data, you can expect Microsoft to perform as a strong, efficient secondary channel.
Running both networks under a unified PPC framework improves efficiency. Share insights, sync keyword lists, and adjust based on performance. Use platform-specific negative keywords and bidding strategies for the best results. You can explore full-funnel planning with Gravitate’s digital marketing experts to manage integrated campaigns.
Microsoft placements do not all behave the same. Search results, native placements, and partner inventory each play a different role in the funnel and need different creative to work well.
Instead of turning every placement on by default, match each one to a clear goal. The table below gives a simple way to decide where to show up, what to run there, and what risks to keep an eye on.
In most accounts, search remains the primary performance engine, and audience or native placements play a supporting role. Start with tight control on search, then use the Audience Network to add remarketing and light prospecting once you have stable conversion data.
From there, you can test additional formats as you see consistent results. Learn about how this fits into a multichannel strategy in our full funnel marketing guide.
Microsoft’s search network includes Bing.com and partner sites like Yahoo and AOL. Core search placements are best for high-intent traffic from users actively seeking a product or service. Partner sites can help you scale, but they often have different CTRs and conversion rates.
For branded campaigns, many advertisers choose to turn search partners off to avoid noisy queries and brand bleed. For non-brand and Shopping campaigns, you can keep partners on and manage them through regular search term reviews and placement audits.
The Microsoft Audience Network distributes native ads across MSN, Outlook, Microsoft Edge, and other properties. These placements rely on short, clear headlines and clean images that look like part of the page rather than banner ads.
Expect lower CTRs than search, but look for contributions in assisted conversions and view-through performance. Audience campaigns work best for remarketing, mid-funnel education, and light prospecting into in-market segments, not as a replacement for your core search coverage.
To keep placements aligned with your brand and avoid fatigue, review these controls regularly:
Microsoft Ads supports multiple formats that line up with each stage of the funnel. You do not need to use everything at once.
In most accounts, search is the core performance driver; Shopping adds efficient bottom-funnel volume for ecommerce; Audience campaigns keep your brand in front of visitors who did not convert; and richer multimedia formats help with recall and re-engagement.
The key is to match each format to a clear role so you don’t have to guess where your budget should go.
Responsive Search Ads (RSAs) are the default for text-based search. AI-based campaigns automatically match your website content to new queries, helping discover opportunities.
Product Shopping Ads display in search results with product titles, images, and prices. The quality of your product feed—titles, images, and GTIN accuracy—directly impacts CTR and conversions.
Audience Ads target in-market or retargeted users through the Microsoft Audience Network. They perform well for mid-funnel campaigns where visuals and storytelling help drive engagement.
Multimedia and video placements appear across MSN and partner platforms. They increase brand recall and help re-engage users after search interactions.
Once you know the job each format should do, you can map it to the right funnel stage and success metric. Use the table below as a quick cheat sheet when planning new campaigns or reviewing existing ones.
Most advertisers do not launch every format on day one, and the ramp looks a lot like what you already do in Google Ads. Start with search campaigns to cover high-intent terms, then layer in Shopping once your feed is clean, and you can track revenue reliably.
Once search and Shopping are stable on both platforms, add Audience campaigns for remarketing and light prospecting, and test Multimedia placements to support brand recall. If you think of Microsoft Ads as a parallel track to your Google structure, it becomes much easier to manage, and the learning curve feels much smaller.
For creative structure and ad copy best practices, see our guide to writing responsive search ads.
Separate campaigns by:
Develop sitelinks by theme, build an image library for extensions, and configure location assets for local campaigns. Content, ad copy, and visuals or creative often take the most time to collect or create which slows down ad campaign launches.
Before launching, plan for the Universal Event Tracking (UET) tag. Use a tag manager to map events and assign value rules for each conversion type.
Our skilled team can handle your setup process with our Microsoft Ads Management service, ensuring you maximize your advertising efforts and effectively achieve your goals!
If you already have a healthy Google Ads account, importing is the fastest way to get started on Microsoft Ads. The important thing to remember is that an import gives you a head start, not a finished campaign.
Microsoft allows you to import directly from Google Ads:
Once the import completes, treat those campaigns as a draft that still needs a Microsoft-specific tune-up.
At a minimum, review these areas where Google settings rarely translate perfectly.
Start with conservative bids and budgets, then adjust once you see how Microsoft performs relative to Google. Use the first 7 to 14 days to compare CPC, CTR, and CPA or ROAS, then raise or lower bids and budgets based on those trends rather than single day swings.
Before you increase budgets, run a quick measurement check:
Group keywords into small, tightly themed ad groups (1–3 close variants). This structure ensures higher ad relevance and stronger Quality Scores.
A solid negative keyword strategy prevents wasted spend. Build shared lists for:
Leverage Dynamic Search Ads or Performance Max equivalents to uncover new high-performing queries, then add winners to dedicated RSA ad groups.
Analyze your search term reports weekly. Add converting keywords that meet a threshold (e.g., 30+ clicks or at least 2 conversions). Exclude irrelevant phrases that waste budget.
Managing negative keywords keeps campaigns profitable and focused. For deeper learning, check our guide to negative keywords. Below is a short starter list that you can build on with negative terms you don’t want to bid on or relate to your business ads.
Responsive Search Ads are the primary text format in Microsoft Ads, and most of your search performance will live or die here. The good news is that the same structure and testing habits you use in Google carry over almost one to one.
Pin only when you truly need to, like protecting essential brand terms or legal disclaimers. The more you pin, the less room Microsoft’s machine learning has to test combinations and discover high-performing pairs of headlines and descriptions.
If you find yourself wanting to pin everything, it is usually a sign that your asset list isn’t strong or clear enough yet.
Each Responsive Search Ad (RSA) should include:
Refresh underperforming assets every 2–4 weeks. Track ad strength, CTR, and conversion rate, then replace bottom-quartile headlines and descriptions with new variations that lean into themes your best assets already use.
Avoid rewriting everything at once. Swap a few assets at a time so you can see what actually drove the lift.
Extensions and assets often deliver cheap wins because they improve visibility without changing your core bids.
When importing from Google, manually recreate any missing extensions to ensure full coverage. Then test alternate headlines, sitelink labels, or offers specific to Microsoft’s audience, rather than assuming Google’s exact messaging will win again.
Use item IDs for top SKUs and split by category or price tier for better bidding control.
Apply merchant promotions to highlight discounts. Seasonal promos and badges can improve CTR and price competitiveness.
Your product feed should include:
Our guide to best practices for Google Ads shopping ads offers detailed tips and effective optimization strategies for both Google Ads and Microsoft Ads.
Microsoft’s Audience Network is best used as a support layer for search, not a replacement. Think of it as a way to stay in front of in-market users and past visitors with native-style placements across MSN, Outlook, and Edge.
Use Audience Network campaigns for:
They work best once your search campaigns are already driving steady traffic and conversions.
Microsoft’s audience tools work best when you layer them together instead of relying on a single segment. Think of in-market, remarketing, and LinkedIn profile data as three levers you can stack for quality, not three separate campaigns.
Learn how this approach aligns with SaaS lead generation in our B2B marketing guide.
Start by matching your bidding strategy to the business outcome you care about most, not to the newest feature in the platform. Then check how much conversion data you have.
Automated strategies like Target CPA and Target ROAS work best once you have steady volume, while lower volume campaigns often perform better with simpler bidding.
As a rule of thumb, give a campaign at least 20 to 30 conversions in a 30 day window before locking in tight Target CPA or Target ROAS goals. Before you hit that level, use Maximize Conversions or Maximize Conversion Value to let the system learn where conversions come from.
Start with Maximize Conversions, then shift to Target CPA once your campaign stabilizes. Use value rules to differentiate high value form fills so the algorithm can prioritize better leads, not just more leads.
If volume is low, keep Target CPA targets loose at first and tighten them over time.
Begin with Maximize Conversion Value, then graduate to Target ROAS for tighter efficiency. Feed accuracy is crucial here, because any missing or incorrect revenue data will mislead the bid strategy.
Review ROAS by product group and consider separate campaigns if high ticket and low ticket items behave very differently.
Manual CPC allows granular control for phone driven campaigns. Once you collect enough call conversion data, test automated bidding on a subset of keywords or a single campaign before rolling it out more widely.
Keep an eye on call quality, not just the raw number of conversions.
Assign minimum daily budgets that allow each campaign to gather enough clicks and conversions for the algorithm to learn.
Avoid big bid or budget changes more than once a week, and give new strategies at least one to two weeks of data before you judge them. Reacting to single day swings usually does more harm than good.
Install the Universal Event Tracking (UET) tag through Google Tag Manager. Verify that it fires correctly on all key pages using Microsoft’s Tag Helper tool. Microsoft provides a basic help article here that can help you get started, but if you want a more in-depth tutorial, we recommend this one from the team at MeasureSchool.
Every business will have different goals or events that are most important to track—set goals for purchases, form fills, calls, etc. Assign values to each and apply deduplication rules to prevent double-counting.
Enable transaction value tracking and choose an attribution model that aligns with your sales cycle (e.g., 30-day click window for ecommerce). You may need to work with your development team to align the parameters Microsoft Ads expects with this data type.
Capture click IDs in your CRM, match them with lead status, and schedule regular uploads. This closes the loop for lead generation and enables Target ROAS bidding for offline revenue.
In Microsoft Ads, Quality Score is built from three pieces: expected CTR, ad relevance, and landing page experience. Higher scores usually mean lower CPCs for the same position, which is why small improvements here often move the needle faster than constant bid changes.
Continually refine RSAs with relevant, specific headlines and strong calls to action. Use search term reports to mirror real customer language in your copy, rather than guessing what people type.
Test simple variables first, like numbers in headlines, different benefit angles, and stronger CTAs, and keep the winners in rotation. Layer in sitelinks, callouts, and image assets to increase click appeal without touching bids.
Keep ad groups tightly themed so each one focuses on a single product, service, or intent cluster. That makes it easier to write RSAs that clearly match the keyword and the query.
Use keyword insertion sparingly to echo the search term where it makes sense, but always prioritize natural, human copy. Regularly mine search terms and move outliers into their own ad groups or exclude them if they do not fit the theme.
Send traffic to pages that match the promise of your ad in headline, offer, and imagery. Ensure pages load quickly, look clean on mobile, and put key benefits and your primary call to action above the fold.
Reduce friction by cutting unnecessary form fields, adding social proof near the CTA, and making trust signals like reviews and security badges easy to see. For layout ideas and examples, see our landing page best practices guide.
Conduct structural audits, improve Quality Scores, test landing pages, and analyze attribution. Review conversion lag and adjust remarketing durations.
For full paid strategy integration, check out our digital marketing services.
Experiments are how you improve Microsoft Ads without guessing. The goal is not to test everything at once, but to run small, clean tests that answer one clear question at a time.
Pick one primary variable so you can tie results back to a single change:
Keep the setup simple and controlled so both versions get a fair shot.
Decide what “winning” looks like before you launch the experiment.
Microsoft Advertising Editor is your offline control center for large or complex accounts. It makes it easier to stage, review, and post large batches of changes without having to click through every campaign in the UI.
Use Editor when you need to make lots of similar changes or clean up structural issues across many campaigns at once. It is especially helpful for bulk bid updates, match type changes, ad refreshes, and managing negative keywords.
Think of it as a drafting space. You can pull everything down, work through changes in a more flexible interface, and only push updates once you are confident they look right. For large accounts, this is often faster and safer than trying to manage everything directly in the browser.
Editor is also a powerful audit tool. Start by downloading your campaigns and using filters to surface problems such as missing extensions, inconsistent naming, or ad groups with only one ad. You can sort and scan through the whole account much more easily than in the web UI.
From there, use find and replace, copy and paste, and bulk editing to fix patterns you see. For example, you can standardize UTM parameters, align naming conventions, or roll out new sitelinks to entire campaign groups in a single pass. Always stage changes locally first, then review them as a batch before posting.
Because Editor makes it easy to move fast, it also makes it easy to push mistakes at scale if you are not careful. Double-check that you do not have filters applied when you post, or you might only update part of what you intended.
Confirm that you are working in the correct account and that you are not accidentally pausing active campaigns or resetting bids too aggressively. Use the “review changes” view to scan for anything that looks out of place, like unexpected budget shifts or ad groups with all ads removed.
Microsoft Ads offers lower CPCs, access to unique audiences, and a robust set of tools to expand reach beyond Google. When optimized with clear structure, quality creative, and disciplined UET tracking, it can deliver exceptional ROAS across industries.
Ready to build a smarter Microsoft Ads program? Work with our PPC experts to craft a strategy that drives measurable growth.
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Microsoft Ads is a pay-per-click platform that displays ads across Bing search, Yahoo, AOL, and the Microsoft Audience Network to capture high-intent users.
Often yes. Many advertisers find Microsoft’s average CPCs 20–35% lower than Google’s, though performance depends on the niche.
Yes. The UET tag powers conversion tracking, remarketing, and smart bidding. Without it, optimization is limited.
Use RSAs for search, Shopping Ads for ecommerce, and Audience Ads for remarketing. Each supports different funnel stages.
With the default audience placement, ads often appear on browser homepages, so make sure it’s snappy and grabs attention.
Track conversion value and align attribution with your buying cycle. Use Target ROAS bidding to automate toward profitable returns.
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