What is Microsoft Advertising? Microsoft’s SEM Tool How it Works

Microsoft Advertising is Microsoft’s SEM tool that allows you to place text ads on search engines (such as Bing or Yahoo) and display advertising on sites in its network.

We usually think that Google is the only search engine, but the truth is that there are other solutions for your SEM strategy that have a minority but exciting audience. For example, Microsoft Bing is the second most-used search engine in the world, with more than 100 million daily active users. In addition, it is betting heavily on Artificial Intelligence with its chatbot Copilot, including functionalities of this type in its search engine long before Google. 

The use of AI in its search engine has recently made Bing experience substantial growth.

For all these reasons, eliminating Microsoft Bing from the equation when designing an SEM strategy may not be the wisest option. If your target audience uses Microsoft to perform searches or other pages in their environment, go for it. An excellent place to start is here.

This article tells you everything you need to know to start doing SEM advertising in the Microsoft Advertising environment, formerly Bing Ads.

How does Microsoft Advertising work?

At first glance, this is a very similar solution to Google Ads: after searching for a particular keyword, the user will see a search results page with ads at the top and side of the page. When users click on the ad, they are sent to the advertiser’s landing page to achieve conversions.

Like its competitor, Microsoft Advertising works on a CPC (pay-per-click) basis, meaning advertisers only pay if users click on their ad. However, the amount you’re willing to pay for each click will influence your visibility, and the more you pay compared to your competitors, the more likely you are to appear in the top positions.

However, there are other factors in viability, as the relevance of your ad and its performance history also play a role.

Of course, Microsoft Ads also offers different targeting options and different ad formats, which we will discuss in the following sections.

Microsoft Advertising Targeting Criteria

Microsoft Advertising allows you to segment campaigns with different criteria, such as:

• Keywords. You can create your keyword lists, use Microsoft Advertising keyword research tools, or export previously created campaigns in Google Ads.
• Location: You can display your store address in your listing and specify a radius within your city or even a zip code.
• Language: The language you set in your campaign will be related to the language the user’s web browser is set to.
• Device Type – You can segment users connecting from a mobile device, tablet, or computer.
• Time of day and day of week.
• Demographic data.
• Purchase Intent: You can create specific e-commerce purchase campaigns that display product images and prices.

Like Google Ads, Microsoft Advertising is very focused on optimization. You’ll need to check performance reports and remember best practices regularly to get the best results.

Advertising solutions

In this section, we want to give you an overview of the different advertising formats and options you can use in Microsoft Advertising. Each one is better suited to a specific purpose and a specific company.

Search Ads

These ads appear in the SERP when users perform search queries on Microsoft network search engines such as Yahoo!, Microsoft Bing, DuckDuckGo, AOL, and Ecosia.

They are designed to increase advertisers’ conversions among the target audience that performs searches related to their products or services.

However, search ads may also appear in other places across the Microsoft environment, like Outlook, MSN, Microsoft Edge, and Microsoft Start, to help you achieve your advertising goals and more easily reach your ideal audience.

We find various formats within search ads, such as multimedia ads, dynamic ads, sector ads, application installation ads, search engine response ads and product ads, among others.

Audience Ads

These ads appear in different content unrelated to the user’s search, but by integrating so organically into the environment and not interrupting the browsing experience, they have a high conversion potential.

Native and Display Ads

These ads appear in Microsoft environments such as Outlook, Microsoft Casual Games, MSN, Microsoft Edge, Microsoft 365, and Microsoft Start. However, they can also be shown in external environments by partner publishers such as USA Today, CBS Sports, or The Weather Channel.

They are designed to attract the attention of an audience that is more interested and further along in the marketing funnel.

To create your native and display ads, Microsoft Advertising accepts various creative materials—from headlines and descriptions to images—in different sizes.

Video Ads and Connected TV

Video is the favourite format of users, and with this solution, you can attract your target audience with a more engaging type of content. Video ads can appear in two types of placements:

In instream or outstream places like Microsoft Casual Games, Microsoft Start, Huffington Post, Activision Blizzard, CBS Sports and People, among others. On connected TV on streaming platforms such as Hulu, Max, Discovery+, Netflix and Roku.

Retail Trade Ads

This solution is specifically designed to expand the reach and conversions of businesses that sell their products. These types of campaigns can appear in search results and on retail websites such as Sephora, Home Depot, Dick’s Sporting Goods, and others.

If your goal is to increase the number of sales of your products online, this is undoubtedly your best option.

Automated Campaigns: Performance Max

This type of campaign became available worldwide on March 5, 2024. They are characterized by making AI available to advertisers to optimize and manage their ads in different formats and channels of the Microsoft network. The goal is for artificial intelligence to help you reach more people, maximize your conversions, and automatically optimize your advertising.

Why use Microsoft Advertising?

You may wonder if it’s worth using Microsoft Advertising when Google Ads is getting most of your traffic. But there are several compelling reasons to consider this platform:

1. Microsoft Advertising allows you to diversify. This way, you can reach an audience that you might not be able to get with Google alone. For example, it can be attractive to older people with little computer knowledge who use PCs with the Windows operating system.
2. Importing your already created campaigns is minimal. Thanks to the Google Ads campaign import feature, you save yourself the work of setting everything up from scratch.
3. Its market share is staying the same. According to data from Statista, Bing’s market share has not decreased worldwide in recent years, remaining between 2.5% and 3.2%.
4. There needs to be more competition. Microsoft Advertising is a reasonably unknown tool, so many advertisers don’t consider it. This makes your ads stand out more, and because it’s based on a bidding system, the costs per click are lower due to fewer competing advertisers.