Microsoft Advertising management for US businesses — campaigns rebuilt for Microsoft's auction rather than copied across from Google, with LinkedIn company, industry and job function targeting that no other search platform offers.
See whether Microsoft is worth adding. Two minutes to request.
Check your inbox for a confirmation from info@adzlance.com.
The unfair advantage
Microsoft owns LinkedIn. That means its ad platform can layer LinkedIn profile data on top of search intent — targeting available on no other search engine.
Bid more when someone from a named company searches your terms. For account-based marketing, this is search advertising that finally aligns with a target account list.
Separate the finance director researching your software from the student writing a dissertation about it — same query, very different value.
Where your product suits some verticals far better than others, bid accordingly rather than paying the same for every click on a generic term.
For a B2B advertiser this is frequently the single best argument for running Microsoft at all. Google can infer intent from a query but cannot tell you the searcher works in procurement at a 5,000-person manufacturer.
Straight assessment
It is a supplement to Google, never a replacement. Search volume is a fraction of Google's — that part is not in dispute. The question is whether the traffic that does exist is worth having.
The most common mistake
Microsoft's Google Ads import is genuinely useful and genuinely dangerous. It gets you live in an afternoon and quietly wrong for months.
Imported bids reflect Google's auction, which is more competitive. Left untouched, you overpay from day one for clicks that were available far cheaper.
Microsoft uses its own UET tag. An imported campaign with no UET tag installed is optimising against nothing, and reporting nothing back.
Close-variant handling and negative keyword behaviour are not identical to Google's. Search terms diverge, and the negative lists you imported do not cover them.
LinkedIn profile targeting has no Google equivalent, so an import never includes it. The main reason to be on the platform sits switched off.
Scheduled imports can undo Microsoft-specific work on every sync, quietly resetting weeks of adjustment back to Google's settings.
Microsoft Merchant Center is separate from Google's, with its own requirements and its own disapprovals to clear.
The work
Cost
Based on complexity, not a percentage of spend. For most accounts Microsoft is added to an existing Google engagement rather than managed alone, which usually makes it the cheapest channel to add.
Typically lower cost per click than the same keywords on Google, with lower volume. The honest framing: smaller pond, cheaper fishing.
No lock-in. You keep ownership of the Microsoft Advertising account, the UET tag and all campaign history.
Questions
