Microsoft Advertising, formerly Bing Ads, is Microsoft’s ad platform. It serves search ads on Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo results that use Bing’s ad feed, and other partners, plus audience ads across the Microsoft Audience Network. Its search volume is smaller than Google’s, but it often reaches a different, work-heavy audience through Windows and Edge defaults.
Why B2B teams pay attention to it
Many corporate computers run Windows with Edge and Bing as defaults, so office-hours searches from work devices make up a meaningful share of its traffic. Microsoft also offers LinkedIn profile targeting on search and audience campaigns, letting you adjust bids by company, industry or job function. That is a rare combination of keyword intent and firmographic targeting.
Competition in many B2B categories is lighter than on Google, which can make clicks cheaper. Whether that holds for your keywords is something to test, not assume.
Importing from Google Ads
Microsoft Advertising can import campaigns, keywords, ads and assets directly from Google Ads and keep them synced on a schedule. This makes a first launch quick, but imported settings are not always ideal.
- Re-check location and language targeting after import.
- Set up the Microsoft UET tag or its conversion API rather than relying on Google’s tracking.
- Review bids, because a click price that suits Google may be too high or too low here.
- Decide whether to include the audience network, which behaves more like display than search.
Example
Layering job titles on search
Hypothetical company Cindermoor sells security compliance software. On Microsoft Advertising it imports its Google search campaigns, then adds LinkedIn profile targeting with a bid increase for people in IT and security job functions. It compares cost per qualified demo against Google over a quarter before deciding how to split budget.
Common mistakes
Import and forget
Scheduled imports can overwrite changes you made in Microsoft Advertising. Choose which elements to sync and review the import log.
Questions
Microsoft has shown ads inside Copilot and Bing chat experiences. Formats and reporting have changed several times, so check Microsoft’s current documentation for what is available in your market.
