Microsoft Advertising (Bing Ads) guide

Where Microsoft ads appear

Microsoft calls its whole inventory the Microsoft Advertising Network, made up of search advertising and audience advertising. Search ads can appear with search results on Microsoft Bing, AOL, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, Ecosia and other partners. Audience ads can appear on sites like MSN, Microsoft Start, Microsoft Edge, Outlook.com and publisher partners. Microsoft's policy pages also use the names Microsoft Search Network and Microsoft Audience Network.

• New campaigns are set to show ads across the entire Microsoft Advertising Network by default.
• With the ad distribution setting you can limit ads to Microsoft sites such as Bing, MSN and Outlook.com, or keep partner traffic such as Bing and Yahoo search partners.
• You choose distribution when you create a campaign, but it is stored as an ad group setting.

Importing your Google Ads campaigns

If you already advertise on Google, you can import those campaigns into Microsoft Advertising and run the same ads on Bing. Microsoft says Google Import transfers campaign structure, keywords, ads, creative assets, targeting, bids, budgets and other eligible settings.

• Most campaign information is imported, but Microsoft lists exceptions. Auto-generated text and image assets from Google Ads are not imported.
• You can schedule recurring imports daily, weekly or monthly. A scheduled import fetches only what changed in Google Ads since the last one.
• Import schedules and history are also available for imports from Meta Ads and Pinterest Ads.

Campaign types

Microsoft's documentation lists campaign types including Search, Audience, Performance Max, Shopping, App and Hotel. Dynamic search ads are no longer a separate campaign type; you create them as ad groups inside a Search campaign. Microsoft groups campaign and ad types by where they can show:

The main search format is the responsive search ad. You enter 3 to 15 headlines and 2 to 4 descriptions, and Bing picks the most relevant combination for each search. Keywords can only be added to Search campaigns, with broad, phrase or exact match deciding how closely a search must match your keyword.

Targeting

Microsoft's targeting guide covers age, day and time, device, gender, location and profile. Audience lists add another layer on top of these.

• Location: countries, states, metro areas, cities and zip codes. You can reach people in a place, searching for it, or viewing pages about it.
• Day and time: follows the searcher's local time zone.
• Device: desktops and tablets, or smartphones.
• Profile: company, industry or job function, according to LinkedIn. Microsoft notes that this data excludes people in the European Economic Area.
• Audiences: in-market audiences, remarketing, similar audiences built from your remarketing lists, and customer match with email addresses your customers shared with you. Remarketing needs the UET tag on your site.
• Performance Max: only location, location intent, radius and day-and-time targets, set at campaign level.

Budget and bidding

You set a daily budget for each campaign. When it is reached, Microsoft stops showing your ads until the next day or month. A shared budget lets several campaigns in one account draw from a single daily budget, and you can change the budget amount and type at any time.

With manual bid strategies you set bids yourself; with automated ones Microsoft adjusts bids in real time toward your goal. Automated options include Maximize conversions, Maximize conversion value, Enhanced CPC, Maximize clicks and Target impression share. Since 4 August 2025, a target CPA or target ROAS is set inside Maximize conversions or Maximize conversion value. Manual strategies are only available in Shopping, App and Audience campaigns, and Microsoft says it always respects your budget limit.

Measurement: the UET tag

Universal Event Tracking (UET) is a tag on your website that records what visitors do and sends it to Microsoft Advertising. Microsoft calls it a prerequisite for conversion tracking, remarketing in search and automated bid strategies. You create one UET tag and add it to your site once.

Conversion goals tell Microsoft which actions recorded by UET count as conversions: page visits or custom events such as a newsletter sign-up or a document download. For visitors from the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom and Switzerland, Microsoft asks you to pass consent through Consent Mode or the Transparency and Consent Framework.

Editorial review and policies

Every part of an ad must pass Microsoft's editorial review: ad text, assets, keywords, ad extensions and ad customizers. Ads must be written in the same language as the ad group's language and market setting, and checks continue after an ad goes live. Microsoft's policies apply across the whole network, and publishers can add their own restrictions.

• A component that fails review gets a Disapproved or Approved Limited status, and the reason is shown in your account.
• You can fix the asset, or request an exception if you believe it should not have been disapproved.
• A disapproved keyword cannot be edited: add a new keyword, then delete the disapproved one.

Opening an account

You sign up with a Microsoft account, or with your Google account credentials, enter basic business details and pick your main goals, such as calls, website visits or online sales. Then you add a payment method and either import campaigns or create your first one. Paying in more than one currency needs separate accounts.

Microsoft has two account modes. Smart mode lets Microsoft's AI handle most of the campaign management, while expert mode gives full control and more reporting. The mode you get at sign-up can depend on your location.

Advertising in Türkiye

• Turkey is on Microsoft's list of markets where Microsoft Advertising shows ads, and on the market list for Shopping campaigns and product ads.
• Turkish is one of the languages you can use to write ads and keywords.
• Microsoft's currency list includes the Turkish lira, with a note that it is not yet available for everyone.
• In-market audiences have their own market list, and Turkey is not on it.
• Smart mode is offered in a short list of countries that does not include Türkiye.

Running Microsoft Advertising campaigns with Mecrio

• You connect your Microsoft Advertising account through Microsoft's own sign-in screen. Mecrio sets up Search, Audience, Performance Max and Shopping campaigns.
• Mecrio builds Microsoft's own structure: the campaign with budget and locations, the ad group with keywords, age, gender and audience, and the ad with headlines, descriptions and its landing page. In Performance Max an asset group takes the ad group's place.
• Everything is created paused in your own account, so nothing spends even if setup stops halfway, and nothing spends until you start it.
• Before publishing, Mecrio counts headline length the way Microsoft does, flags an audience ad image that is too small, stops a Performance Max draft that still has a saved audience selected, and stops a video-views draft prepared with an image.
• Accounts in smart mode, suspended or inactive accounts and accounts where you only have view access cannot be selected, and Mecrio says why.
• After launch you can change the budget, dates, keywords, headlines and descriptions from Mecrio, or pause and restart the campaign. Ad spend is paid directly to Microsoft from your own account, and Mecrio takes no cut.