Microsoft
Ads.

From my audits

What I find in
Microsoft Ads accounts.

I've run Microsoft Ads alongside Google for e-commerce and lead generation businesses. These are the patterns that come up most.

1. 1

   Imported and forgotten

   Campaigns copied from Google a year ago, auto-syncing every change, with nobody checking whether Bing's searchers behave the same way.

2. 2

   Partner sites eating budget

   Clicks from sites nobody has heard of, at low cost and with no enquiries behind them, until someone checks the website report.

3. 3

   Phone traffic expected

   Budgets set as if Bing reached the same people as Google, when the business mostly gets enquiries from phones.

4. 4

   Cheaper clicks, same targets

   Clicks are often cheaper, but the account is judged on Google's numbers instead of its own cost per real enquiry.

How it differs from Google

Smaller.
Not the same.

Microsoft lets you copy your Google campaigns across in minutes. That's the start of the job, not the end of it.

1. 01

   Importing Google campaigns

   Microsoft can import campaigns from Google Ads and keep them in sync on a schedule. Its own help notes that targeting options are significantly different on each platform, and broad match negatives come across as phrase match.

   What I do: Import, then fix locations, negatives and bids by hand. Turn off automatic sync once you've made Microsoft-specific changes.

2. 02

   LinkedIn profile targeting

   Microsoft is the only ad platform apart from LinkedIn that can target by LinkedIn profile: company, industry and job function, on Search and other campaign types.

   What I do: For B2B, raise bids for searchers in the right roles and industries, instead of paying LinkedIn's prices for the click.

3. 03

   Partner sites

   Ads can show beyond Bing on Microsoft's search partner sites. You can exclude specific websites, but only once you've seen where the ads ran.

   What I do: Check where ads appear in the first weeks, and exclude sites that send clicks but no real enquiries.

4. 04

   Desktop does the work

   Bing's share in Australia is about 19% on desktop against 0.5% on phones. The audience is people at a computer, often at work.

   What I do: Plan the budget around your desktop conversions, not your total, and check the device report first.

Market share figures from StatCounter for September 2026, which measures page views from a large sample of sites. Your own Google Ads device report is the better guide for your business.

Why people use Bing

Most people never
chose their search engine.

Bing's audience isn't people who switched. It's mostly people who use whatever was already set up.

1. 01Opening a browser

   The default effect

   In the US antitrust case against Google, the judge found Google paid more than $26 billion in 2021 to be the default search engine, and pointed to Bing's position on Microsoft's Edge browser as evidence that defaults decide who people use.

   Bing users are often on work computers and Windows defaults. That says more about where they are than who they are.

   What I do: Treat Microsoft as a desktop, office-hours channel. Ad schedules and messages that suit someone at work usually do better.

Linked so you can read the reporting on the ruling. I'm a marketer, not a lawyer: the point here is how much defaults shape behaviour.

How most Microsoft accounts run.
How I run them.

How it works

Four steps.
Nothing hidden.

1. 01

   Free audit

   I check your Google Ads first, and your device split, to see whether Microsoft is worth adding.

2. 02

   Import and adjust

   Your best Search campaigns brought across, then locations, negatives, bids and schedules set for Bing.

3. 03

   Test

   Six to eight weeks, judged on cost per real enquiry or sale, not on cheap clicks.

4. 04

   Keep or cut

   If it pays, it gets its own care. If it doesn't, you've lost little and learned something.

Keep going

• ServiceGoogle Ads management
• ServiceLinkedIn Ads
• IndustryB2B marketing
• MethodSpend Curve