Every so often someone asks us whether it is worth "doing Bing as well". The question is badly framed from the start, because it assumes Microsoft Advertising is a smaller copy of Google Ads you switch on with a click. It is not. It is a channel with a different audience, a less crowded auction, targeting tools of its own and — above all — an import mechanism that, left on its default settings, can quietly work against you.

Who Microsoft Advertising actually reaches

Microsoft’s search network is wider than Bing alone. According to Microsoft’s documentation, Search ads can appear on:

  • Bing, which is also the default search engine in the Edge browser and in Windows search;
  • Yahoo and AOL properties, which the distribution settings group with Microsoft’s owned and operated sites;
  • syndicated search partners, DuckDuckGo among them, which show Microsoft ads in their own results;
  • Copilot experiences, where ads can appear alongside conversational answers.

On top of that sits the Microsoft Advertising Network for non-search formats, which is a separate conversation and not the reason anyone opens a Microsoft account.

The control almost nobody touches. At campaign and ad group level you can choose to show ads across the whole search network, only on Bing, AOL and Yahoo sites, or only on syndicated partners. What you cannot do is pick a single partner: "DuckDuckGo only" does not exist. If publisher reports show poor-quality syndicated traffic, this setting is your lever, not a site-by-site exclusion.

When it pays, and when it does not

The right question is not "does Microsoft work?" but "does my ideal customer pass through it?". Where we see it deliver consistently:

  • B2B and professional services. People looking for a supplier from the office often do so on a company PC, where Edge and Windows search send them to Bing by default. It is the same reason desktop carries more weight than on Google.
  • Older audiences and decision-makers. Fewer impulsive smartphone searches, more planned ones.
  • Google accounts already limited by budget on their core business. If you are already buying all the qualified demand Google has to offer, Microsoft is incremental demand, not cannibalisation.

Where it is rarely worth the effort:

  • Local businesses whose searches are almost all on mobile — emergency call-outs, restaurants, "near me" services.
  • Google accounts that do not yet have reliable tracking. Duplicating a problem on a second channel does not fix it; it makes it harder to see.
  • Budgets that are already too thin. If you struggle to reach ten or so conversions a week per campaign on Google, moving part of the spend to Microsoft gives you two campaigns that do not learn instead of one. The reasoning is the same as in our budget guide.

Realistic volume: plan small

There is no fixed ratio between Google and Microsoft volume, and we are wary of anyone who promises you one. It depends on vertical, country and the share of desktop users in your audience. What can honestly be said is that in most European markets Microsoft delivers a fraction of Google’s volume, often at a lower cost per click because the auction is less crowded.

A sensible way to set up the test. Start with the campaigns that have the best cost per acquisition on Google and are limited by budget. Give them a Microsoft budget large enough to collect a few dozen conversions over 6-8 weeks, and no more. Judge cost per acquisition and lead quality, not volume: if the cost holds, expand; if it does not, you have paid little to find out.

Google Import: what it copies and what it does not

The Google Ads import tool is the fastest way to get started: connect the Google account, choose what to bring over, and Microsoft recreates campaigns, ad groups, ads, keywords, negatives, assets and much of the targeting. It can import conversion goals too and, according to the API documentation, even AI Max settings. The trouble is that it copies structure, not decisions. There are five main traps.

1. Scheduled imports overwrite your work

You can import once or schedule recurring imports. With updates to existing items switched on, every run realigns previously imported items with Google: bids, campaign budgets and the status of campaigns, ad groups, ads and keywords are all included by default. In plain terms: if you pause a campaign in Microsoft because it does not perform there, the next import re-enables it if it is live on Google. Lower a bid, and Google’s bid comes back.

The choice has to be made up front. Either Microsoft mirrors Google, and changes are made only in Google. Or Microsoft has a life of its own, and bid, budget and status updates are switched off — or scheduled imports stop altogether after the first one. The middle path, optimising in Microsoft while leaving full sync on, is the one that produces "the campaign switched itself back on" phone calls.

2. Bids and budgets do not translate one to one

The import lets you apply a percentage adjustment to bids and budgets relative to Google, from -90% to +900%. Bids and budgets below Microsoft’s minimums are raised automatically unless you opt out — in which case campaigns that do not meet the minimums are not imported. If the Google and Microsoft accounts use different currencies, automatic conversion is off by default: 50 in one currency becomes 50 in the other.

Bid strategies, too, are not identical across the two platforms. After every import, check campaign by campaign which strategy was applied and with what target.

3. Location targeting can widen

Google locations that Microsoft does not support are, by default, mapped to the nearest supported parent location. A campaign built for a specific town or area can end up serving the whole county or region. The alternative is to switch the expansion off, in which case unsupported locations are simply not imported. Either way, geographic targeting needs checking by hand.

4. Campaigns go live immediately

An option to pause newly imported campaigns exists, but it is off by default. Always switch it on for the first import: you want to review distribution, locations, bids and conversions before spend starts, not after.

5. Deletions can propagate

There is an option, off by default, that deletes in Microsoft whatever has been removed in Google, together with everything it contains. Useful for keeping accounts aligned; dangerous if someone tidies up Google without knowing there is a scheduled import on the other side.

UET and conversion goals: the piece that does not import

Microsoft measures with its own tag, UET (Universal Event Tracking). Conversion goals can be imported from Google, but an imported goal is only a definition: if there is no UET tag on the site sending the matching events, it stays at zero. The Google tag does not feed Microsoft, and automated bid strategies without conversions have nothing to optimise towards.

The right sequence is therefore: install UET (Google Tag Manager works), confirm events are arriving, check that imported goals match real events, and only then switch on conversion-based strategies. If you also import remarketing lists, they must be associated with a UET tag, or they will not populate.

This is where many European accounts are exposed without knowing it. Since 5 May 2025 Microsoft has required a consent signal for users in the European Economic Area, the UK and Switzerland. The parameter that matters is ad_storage, which must be sent as granted or denied on every page load according to the user’s choice; Microsoft also accepts the TCF framework as an alternative. Without a valid signal, Microsoft stops recording UET conversions and populating remarketing lists for those users.

The practical point: many consent banners send signals to Google correctly and ignore Microsoft, because the UET integration has to be enabled separately. The result is a Microsoft account showing few conversions and concluding the channel does not work. Use the browser’s developer tools to confirm the UET tag receives the consent state, exactly as you would for Consent Mode v2 on Google. In February 2026 Microsoft also introduced an advanced consent mode that estimates missing conversions: if it interests you, assess it with whoever owns data protection, as with the equivalent choice on the Google side.

LinkedIn profile targeting: the real B2B advantage

It is the one thing Microsoft offers that Google does not. In search campaigns you can use LinkedIn profile data — company, industry, job function — as an audience signal, either as a bid adjustment or as an outright restriction.

How we use it:

  1. Always start in bid-only mode, not exclusive targeting: ads still reach everyone, but you pay more for people who match the profile. Restricting straight away cuts volume on a channel that is already short of it.
  2. Use job function and industry before company lists: lists are powerful for account-based marketing, but on small segments data arrives slowly.
  3. Read segment reports after a few weeks and only then decide whether to raise adjustments or move to exclusive targeting in dedicated campaigns.

LinkedIn targeting availability varies by market and has been extended over time: check in the account that it is active for the countries you care about before building a plan on it.

Checklist before you switch on

  1. First import with campaigns paused, then a manual review.
  2. Decide whether Microsoft is a mirror or a standalone account and configure scheduled updates accordingly.
  3. Recheck locations and distribution across the search network and partners.
  4. UET installed, events verified, ad_storage consent transmitted.
  5. Negatives and search terms managed on Microsoft too: the governance described in our negative keywords guide applies here as well, and the search terms will not match Google’s.
  6. Test budget set in advance, with a date and an evaluation criterion.

If you want to know whether Microsoft makes sense for your account before spending a penny on it, our free audit starts from the data you already have in Google: devices, hours, audiences, the share of demand you are not yet buying. You can see which services cover multi-platform management, and the answers to the most common questions in the FAQ.