Getting Started With Microsoft Advertising

By Dana Zacharias - Tuesday October 27, 2026 Share (Twitter) WhatsApp Summarize ChatGPT Perplexity Grok Google AI So you’ve been running ads on Google for some time now, and you’re ready to expand! Welcome to the great new adventure that is Microsoft Ads (formerly known as Bing Ads). Microsoft Ads is a fantastic secondary platform to utilize.

It is similar enough to Google Ads that navigation and fundamentals are consistent, but it has its own unique characteristics that require some background knowledge to navigate smoothly.

As you prepare for your journey into this new platform, we will go through some key learnings and tips you can equip yourself with to be best prepared to start using Microsoft Advertising. Search Campaigns: The Recommended Entry Point Search campaigns are the foundation for both Google and Microsoft Ads and are the ideal place to start.

Using your already built Google Ads campaigns as a reference point is a good first step, but you do not want to always make a direct copy. Let’s focus on two things here: brand and non-brand and match types: Brand and Non-Brand – It is important to ensure your Microsoft search campaign is being set up for success from the start.

Start with your Brand and Non-Brand campaigns as your foundation. If the campaign you want to import has 5 ad groups in Google, consider starting your Microsoft campaign with the top 3 performing ad groups based on your KPI metrics for success. Keep the focus of your Microsoft dollars on the keywords that generate the best results in Google Ads.

You can always expand coverage in the future once the campaign has stabilized. Match Types – When reviewing your Google Ads campaigns that you want to bring into Microsoft Ads, use caution with match types. Broad match within Microsoft Ads is not built the same way as in Google.

Broad match keywords in Microsoft Ads can serve much more loosely than in Google, causing you to pay for irrelevant search terms. Especially with a new campaign with no learnings yet, broad match terms could end up spending your daily budget easily without providing the intended return.

If you feel strongly about including broad match terms within Microsoft, launch a separate campaign to increase your control of bids and budget. Patience Is Key Oftentimes, Google and Microsoft Ads are wrapped up together in reporting. This can lead to users anticipating the same process when launching Microsoft Ads as they did for Google Ads.

While the standard for a learning period in Google Ads is about 2 weeks (depending on budget), you will want to set the expectation that learning can take 4-8 weeks depending on budget and volume of conversions being captured. This is because Microsoft Ads has a fraction of the search volume that Google has, leading to longer learning periods.

As you prepare for the ebbs and flows of your campaign’s learning period, resist the urge to make frequent or dramatic changes to the bids and budgets. Getting through that learning period can be frustrating; however, it is important to give Microsoft Ads a fair shot at being able to function as intended.

So sit on your hands if you must and give your campaigns a fair shot to learn and stabilize before declaring them winners or losers. Notable Platform Differences Microsoft Ads offers some unique offerings, some similar to Google Ads, even in name, and others that only exist when running Microsoft Ads.

Campaign types and features such as Performance Max (PMax) and AI Max try to mirror their Google Ads counterparts. While these tools share a similar concept, they are built on different tech, are trained on different data, and serve a smaller audience. Other campaign types such as Audience ads are unique to the Microsoft Ads platform.

Because these tools run on different tech and data, test them with smaller budgets before scaling. There are a few differences that impact the platform as a whole: Competitors: There are fewer advertisers bidding in Microsoft Ads than in Google AdsThis is why CPCs tend to be cheaper than what you see in Google Ads.

Placements: Microsoft is its own ecosystem with its own placements, including MSN, Outlook and Xbox. This piece of Microsoft creates a distinct opportunity as the placement options here could end up aligning with your target audience better than the placements Google Ads has to offer. One way to target these placements is through PMax or Audience Ads.

LinkedIn Profile Targeting: Since Microsoft owns LinkedIn, you can use LinkedIn data such as company, industry, and job function in your targeting. This is a unique offering that does not have a similar counterpart in Google Ads and can be a big win for B2B advertisers.

Audience Ads: Audience Ads are native to Microsoft, meaning they blend into the content feeds and placements across the ecosystem rather than showing up like a typic