Having spent five years in new business development at JumpFly, engaging with brands daily, I’m often surprised by how many leave their Microsoft Ads accounts on autopilot or untouched. It doesn’t seem to matter whether their accounts are managed by an agency partner or handled internally, Microsoft accounts become an afterthought and are neglected.
Brands/Agencies either do not realize the total potential of Microsoft ads or don’t keep up with the changes to the platform itself!
It’s important to continually monitor your Microsoft account, just as you should your Google account. On a yearly basis, it’s important to audit this platform for either a platform health check or when engaging a new agency partner.
5 Reasons To Continually Check Your Microsoft Ads Account
1. Optimize Campaign Performance
- Identify underperforming ads, keywords, or campaigns: focus on those that do not generate conversions.
- Improve targeting: make sure your ads are reaching your prospective audience.
- Quality assurance with ad quality: regular checks help improve ad copy, visuals, and landing page effectiveness.
2. Push Your ROI
- Budget allocation: ensure your ad spend is focused on high-performing campaigns or areas with the best ROI.
- Reduce wasted spend: eliminate non-performing audiences. Overspending and underperforming audiences is one of the most often overlooked issues in a Microsoft Campaign. Running reports that show you the spend and conversions/view-through conversions and eliminating waste can change a poor-performing campaign into a winner.
3. Monitor Keyword Effectiveness
- Grow your negative keywords: add irrelevant or low-performing terms as negatives to make your account more efficient.
- Modify your bids: optimize bidding strategies based on keyword performance and competition.
4. Double Check Your Targeting – Maybe Your Audience Has Shifted!
- Check demographic, device, ad schedule, or location reports that may dilute your campaign’s focus:
- Microsoft defaults to targeting both the US and Canada, so we routinely see spend in Canada when a company only wants to target the US.
- We also often see too much spend with too little performance from midnight through the early morning hours; curtailing or eliminating spend on those overnight hours can quickly improve campaign results.
- Verify audience segmentation to ensure you’re targeting high-conversion prospects.
5. Play The Game – Steal Marketshare Accurately Against Competitors
- Leverage audit insights to evaluate your position against competitors and fine-tune your strategies. Explore your Impression Share analysis to uncover opportunities to compete more effectively with your top rivals.
Recent Microsoft Ads Updates
Lastly, Microsoft is frequently adding new products and updating its platform. In 2024 alone, Microsoft added several noteworthy changes. Their big push for the year was to improve campaign effectiveness, elevate the user experience, and integrate AI Technologies, especially ChatGPT.
Key Microsoft Ads Account Updates in 2024
- Performance Max (PMax) Campaign Updates: Microsoft introduced brand exclusions, excluding specific branded search queries from showing their ads.
- Advanced Bidding and Targeting Options:
- Enhanced CPC for Native Campaigns: Transitioned native campaigns from manual CPC to enhanced CPC.
- Maximize Conversion Value Bid Strategy (A major value for strategy, not offered previously): for search campaigns, prioritizing the optimization of high-value conversions and maximizing overall sales revenue.
- Video and Display Advertising Changes:
- Extended Video Ad Durations: added support for 45- and 75-second video ad creatives.
- Performance Features for Display and Video Ads: introduced new bidding strategies, expanded targeting options, and enhanced conversion tracking features.
- Incorporation of Generative AI and Advanced Copilot Features:
- Copilot in Microsoft Advertising Platform: aimed to assist advertisers in creating high-quality marketing content.
- AI-Powered Asset Recommendations: Copilot offers automatic recommendations (Many agencies claim, and we agree, that auto recommendations often hurt your campaigns rather than help them!)
In short, Microsoft Ads should never be left on autopilot. Just as you would with Google Ads, you need to monitor, optimize, and adjust your campaigns regularly to maximize performance and ROI. With Microsoft continually rolling out new features, advanced bidding strategies, and AI-driven enhancements, staying on top of your account ensures you’re not leaving valuable opportunities on the table. Whether you manage your account internally or work with an agency, conducting routine audits and making data-driven adjustments will keep your campaigns competitive and efficient.
Don’t let Microsoft Ads be an afterthought – give it the attention it deserves, and you’ll see the rewards in your results.
