Microsoft Advertising and Bing: what the platform covers, where the ads appear, and how to launch it in an afternoon

Microsoft Advertising is Microsoft's advertising platform, and Bing is the search engine at the centre of it. The platform was renamed from Bing Ads to Microsoft Advertising in 2019, and the account is free to open at ads.microsoft.com, with cost set by auction against your own budgets. On its own site, checked on 9 October 2026, Microsoft describes search ads running on Bing, Yahoo and DuckDuckGo and other partners in its network, display and native placements across MSN, Microsoft Edge, Outlook and Microsoft Casual Games, video and connected television inventory across Microsoft properties and publisher partners, plus retail ads, a Performance Max campaign type and gaming solutions. For an advertiser already running search elsewhere, the fastest honest test is to import the existing account, fix five settings, and read the result after a month.

This page covers the platform and how to start on it. For what paid search costs and what sets the price, see paid search cost explained, and for planning one campaign across engines see how to plan a search campaign across search engines.

What the name covers now

Product line	What it buys	When it earns a place
Search ads	Text ads against queries on Bing and partner search engines in the Microsoft network	Always first. This is demand that already exists
Shopping and retail ads	Product listings in search results and on retail surfaces	When you have a product feed and margin per unit
Display and native	Placements across MSN, Edge, Outlook and casual games	When search is capped and you need reach against an audience
Video and connected television	Video placements across Microsoft properties and publisher partners	When the job is recognition rather than capture
Performance Max	One campaign that spans the available placements with automated optimisation	After the search account has clean conversion data to learn from

Where the ads actually appear

This is the part advertisers misjudge, because the search engine and the network are not the same thing. Microsoft's own description names Bing alongside Yahoo and DuckDuckGo and refers to exclusive partnerships including Ecosia, with reach continuing onto the open web. Practically, that means a search campaign can serve on engines you never named. Two settings follow from it: decide early whether you want syndicated search partner traffic in the same campaign as Bing traffic, and keep an eye on the placement reports so you can judge the partner traffic on its own merits rather than blended with the rest.

Why advertisers run it alongside Google

• It is a separate auction. A different set of advertisers bid on your keywords here, so the cost per click and the competition are their own numbers. Measure them rather than assume them.
• The audience mix leans desktop and Windows. Bing is the default engine in Microsoft Edge and in Windows search, which skews the traffic towards desktop and towards work hours for many categories.
• Setup is nearly free. Microsoft lists import tools among its platform tools, and the usual route is importing an existing Google Ads structure instead of rebuilding keywords, ads and settings by hand.
• It is incremental volume at a tested price. For a business that is capped on Google search volume rather than on budget, this is the next place the same intent exists.

Launching it in an afternoon

• Open the account at ads.microsoft.com and set the billing country, currency and time zone carefully. These are difficult to change later.
• Install conversion tracking first. Microsoft's tag is called Universal Event Tracking, and the conversion goals you build on it are what every automated bidding decision later depends on. An account that starts spending before the tag is verified wastes the first fortnight.
• Import the existing account, then schedule the import to repeat so later changes carry across.
• Fix the five things import always leaves behind. Budgets and bid strategies, which do not map one to one. Negative keyword lists, which often need reattaching. Ad assets and extensions, which need checking against the character limits here. Location and device targeting, including the device split, which behaves differently on this traffic. Tracking templates and campaign parameters, so the clicks land in your analytics labelled correctly rather than as direct traffic.
• Set a real budget for a real test. Enough daily spend to collect at least a few hundred clicks across the test period, concentrated on your best performing keyword set rather than spread across everything you imported.

The tools worth knowing

• Keyword Planner, for Microsoft's own volume and forecast data, which is a second opinion on demand rather than a copy of Google's.
• Microsoft Advertising Editor, the desktop application for bulk changes, which is where experienced teams do most of the work.
• Audience targeting, including remarketing lists and profile based options, documented in the help centre at help.ads.microsoft.com.
• Automated bidding, which performs in proportion to the quality of your conversion tracking, so treat the tag work as the prerequisite.
• Ad preview and the Copilot assisted features, both listed among the platform tools on Microsoft's site as of 9 October 2026, for checking what serves and for drafting variants.

How to judge the channel after 30 days

Compare like for like or the answer will be wrong. Pull the same date range, the same conversion definition and the same attribution window you use on your other search platform, then look at three things: cost per acquisition on your top twenty keywords, the share of spend going to search partner placements rather than Bing itself, and the proportion of conversions coming from branded queries. If branded terms dominate, the account is harvesting demand other channels created and the test needs non branded weight before you decide. If cost per acquisition lands within range of your other search channel on a decent click volume, scale it. If partner placements are absorbing budget without converting, separate them into their own campaign and judge them there.

What people ask about Microsoft Advertising and Bing

Is Microsoft Advertising the same as Bing Ads?

Yes. Bing Ads was renamed Microsoft Advertising in 2019, and the account, the interface and the search inventory are the continuation of the same platform. Older guides using the Bing Ads name still describe the same product in most respects.

How much does it cost to advertise on Bing?

There is no fixed price. Opening an account costs nothing, you set daily and campaign budgets, and each click is priced by auction against the other advertisers bidding on that query. Start with a budget you would be comfortable spending twice, because the first weeks buy you data as much as clicks.

Can I just copy my Google Ads account across?

That is the standard way to start, using the import tools, and it saves most of the setup. Treat the import as a draft rather than a finished account: budgets, bid strategies, negatives, assets and tracking all need a pass by hand afterwards.

Does Bing search traffic convert differently?

It is a different audience mix, weighted towards desktop and towards Windows and Edge defaults, so your category may see a different device split and different peak hours. Read your own thirty day report rather than somebody else's benchmark, since category differences here are large.

Do I need a separate landing page?

No. Use the same pages, with campaign parameters set so the traffic is identifiable in analytics. Separate pages are worth building only when the audience or the offer genuinely differs.

Where do AI answers in Bing fit in?

Bing shows generative answers alongside its results, and Microsoft has been building advertising formats around that surface. For planning purposes, keep the search campaign aimed at the queries you know convert, and treat the organic side of those answers as a separate piece of work.

What the buyer reads before the ad is shown

Microsoft's Copilot answers questions in text, and so do ChatGPT and Perplexity. A buyer who asks which software to buy gets a written reply with no ad slot in it, so the campaigns you built above do not reach that moment.

Treat it as a separate list of questions. Ask your five buyer questions in Copilot, ChatGPT and Perplexity and note which brands are named and which pages are cited. AI Knows Us runs the same questions across assistants so you can set the result next to your paid search report.