All Your 2026 Microsoft Ads Questions Answered - with Navah Hopkins of Microsoft Ads

We had a great live chat session with Navah Hopkins of Microsoft Ads on January 13, 2026. Here are all the questions we covered in the chat and some we did not have time to get to.

Question: What’s different about Microsoft than Google, Meta, and Pinterest (all the networks Microsoft Ads support imports for)?

Microsoft Advertising is different primarily because of where and how ads appear, not just how they’re bought.
Intent + context at scale: Microsoft reaches users across Search (Bing), Microsoft Edge, Windows, Outlook, and Microsoft properties, meaning ads show up when people are actively researching, shopping, working, or planning — not just scrolling.
Professional and enterprise reach: Microsoft properties over‑index on productivity, work‑related usage, and higher‑intent decision moments. This is especially relevant for B2B, high‑consideration consumer, and regulated categories.
Unique data signals: Microsoft uses signals from search, content consumption, and platform context — without relying on third‑party cookies — which is different from social-first or purely interest-based networks.
Import‑friendly but not import‑dependent: Imports make onboarding easier, but Microsoft campaigns benefit from optimization that reflects Microsoft‑specific inventory and user behavior, not one‑to‑one copies of other platforms.

Follow Up Question: Would love to see statistics (even 3rd party) that show percentage of total users by industry, and % of industry users by total users.

For example… I’d expect Google to have more users in specific industries/verticals purely by volume, but I’d be curious if MSFT has a larger share by % of grand total. Like healthcare. Google may have 2m active users who qualify for the health vertical I’m targeting but that equals roughly 1% of the US total for that pool within Google. Whereas, if MSFT also had 2m but that equals 20% of the same US total for that pool, it changes the calculations I would do initially and I may choose to favor budget towards MSFT.

A: This might be helpful: https://about.ads.microsoft.com/en/tools/planning/search-data

Question: Why can’t my budget spend?

A: There are a few potential reasons for this:

Your bid to budget ratios are out of whack. As a general rule, you want to make sure you can fit at least 10 clicks in your budget. If you can’t, you’re banking on a better than 10% conversion rate. For non-branded search, that’s just not reasonable.
Your targeting settings are too narrow for us to match you with your ideal customer. This doesn’t mean to open up to broad match and wider location/placement targeting, but it might mean rethinking how much you’re leaning into performance marketing when you should be adding in brand buys (like Audience ads and CTV). You might experiment with tools like PMax if you have the 30 conversions in 30 days, or use the Audience Planner in Audience ads to get a sense of who is reachable on Microsoft and why they might be motivated by different things than your targeting on Google/Meta/Pinterest.
Your ads might still be in editorial review (this can take longer in new accounts). If it’s been more than 7 days since you started your campaigns (including clearing advertiser identity verification), chat into support for assistance.

Question: How can I use LinkedIn targeting in Microsoft ads?

A: I just wrote an SEL post about this: How to use LinkedIn targeting in Microsoft Advertising

Question: What’s going on with gaming and why should performance marketers care?

A: Microsoft operates one of the world’s largest connected gaming ecosystems (Xbox, Windows gaming).

Gaming environments provide high‑engagement, consented, logged‑in inventory
Performance marketers benefit from scalable reach in privacy‑resilient environments

Follow up question: If we had clients who did want to target gamers/games, where would you recommend we send them / what channels should we be using to take advantage of those placements?

A: This is a great place to get started: https://about.ads.microsoft.com/en/solutions/technology/gaming-solutions

Question: Does Microsoft Ads plan to add channel breakdown data and reporting for PMax?

A: This is coming and in closed pilot. No date to announce – we’re actively working to ensure what we bring takes on feedback around the utility of channel reporting.

Follow up question: I love seeing the channel breakdown, but in Google you can’t adjust bids or turn off channels so I find the report more of a frustration. I can see areas of inefficiency but can’t do anything about it. It’s all or nothing with PMax.

Any possibility of allowing some range of bid modification or even turning off certain channels?

A: This is part of why we’re delayed – we’re working through feedback to make sure what we bring to market addresses advertiser feedback in a meaningful way. I can’t speak to specifics of what will or won’t be there. Know that the feedback is heard.

Question: How can we easily exclude the audience network from search campaigns? For us, performance is awful and if we push auto daily updates it puts the setting back on. For example – I’m spending 50% of my budget on Audience on search and it drives 0 conversions.

A: First, there’s an important distinction: search campaigns can serve on traditional search surfaces (Bing SERP, Copilot, etc), Search partners (Duck duck go, baidu, etc), and display spots including Microsoft’s premium inventory (MSN, etc). “Audience network” does not exist.

If you’re looking to ensure your ads only serve on search surfaces, there are a few options:

You can exclude individual website urls from campaigns at the ad group level or make exclusion lists of up to 2,500 urls per list at the MCC level.
You can chat into support and ask for the display exclusions. You’ll be asked to provide data oriented reasons on why you want to exclude those placements. The reason for that is these placements can drive value and there has been big investments in quality.
It’s important to remember that Microsoft inventory leans into visual assets – so if customers don’t provide images to go with their text assets, they may not be eligible for placements when their customers are ready to engage with them.

On the conversion question – it’s important to check if conversion tracking is working correctly. If you’re confident in that, one other useful tool is Microsoft Clarity, a free behavioral analytics tool, that can help you see how your users are behaving once they hit your site.

https://clarity.microsoft.com/

Follow up question: If we don’t include visual assets, we won’t be on display placements at all? Is there an AI image generator like Google has?

A: There is an autogenerated image asset tool that can help you reach those placements.

Follow up question: How can we more effectively address inventory concerns? Any comments on what is being done to address spam leads and low quality content?

A: We’re actively doing clean up all the time and demonetize bad actors. While we do a lot to proactively catch these issues, reporting issues through support helps us know to focus there as well as have data to defend greater investments in clean up.

Question: Can you share exclusion lists between Google Ads & Microsoft Ads?

A: Yes! Microsoft offered Search Partner visibility since the beginning, and continues to offer transparency for Audience ads (including mobile url bundles) in the Website URL report. You can identify placements you want to exclude from there, as well as identify placements you might want to target on Google. Vice versa, you can also take proven placements on Google and target them on Microsoft with Audience ads placement targeting (note that all Audience ads media buys include Microsoft’s owned premium inventory).

You can import exclusion urls – full list of what can be imported here: https://help.ads.microsoft.com/#apex/ads/en/50851/0

Note that most of the useful import settings are under the advanced settings under manual import. if you choose to do a quick import, you may miss some things.

Question: What are your top recommendations for taking campaigns that were set up in Google Ads and importing them into Microsoft Ads? And what little tweaks or adjustments should advertisers do to their imported campaigns to make them work best in the Microsoft Ads platform?

A: I wrote a post detailing this for SEJ which you can read here: Ask A PPC: How To Make Microsoft Advertising Profitable

The biggest advice I can give is to know whether you will be leaning into what makes Microsoft special or whether you will be running on auto-import from Google. There are pros and cons to both:

Pros of managing directly with a one time import or starting from scratch:

Ad group level settings like location targeting, ad scheduling, and other critical settings allow you to consolidate budgets more effectively than you might on Google (even with portfolio bidding). This means you might have five campaigns with ten ad groups targeting different times and locations, as opposed to 15 campaigns with three to five ad groups. By having fewer campaigns, you can have larger budgets and have an easier time hitting the 30 conversion in 30 days needed for autobidding to reliably function.
Microsoft’s unique audience types (Impression Based Remarketing and LinkedIn Profile Targeting) are not available on Google. These audiences allow you to harness the value of impressions and B2B intent in ways that might focus your bids and budget differently than how you run your campaigns on Google.
Bid adjustments still function on Microsoft (they act as directional signals for autobidding). If you build with them in mind, you might be able to get higher ROI, than if you import from Google without them. It’s also worth noting that bids and budgets from Google are often higher than what you need for Microsoft, As a general rule, I tend to reduce bids by about 30%.

Cons of managing directly as opposed to having auto import on:

You have to manage the campaign and build creative that honors Microsoft’s unique inventory including being able to use “!” in headlines, Multimedia ads on the right hand side of the SERP/Copilot, and allowing for ads to serve in the time zone of the user or the account (i.e. less math on when to have your ads run).

Pros of importing from Google, Meta, or Pinterest (either one time or on a schedule):

Proven keywords/structure on a network that comes in at a discount (you can use the import settings to reduce your bids, as well as indicate which settings you’re willing to override vs keep as is once imported).
Less work on getting started.

Cons of importing regularly (there are no cons to a one time import):

You might miss tools that aren’t available on Google, Meta, or Pinterest when you import.
If you don’t adjust your settings, you risk making changes to your Microsoft ads account that you don’t intend. This is why it’s critical to go through the import settings and make sure you agree with what you’re allowing Microsoft to change on your behalf through import.

Note: Meta and Pinterest are for Audience ads only at this time.

Question: How do Microsoft Ads’ agentic capabilities compare with what Google is doing? Any key differences advertisers should be aware of/take advantage of?

A: We prefer to avoid feature‑by‑feature competitive claims, here’s how I would think about Microsoft’s AI perspective:

Agentic AI is embedded across the Microsoft ecosystem: spanning Copilot, Microsoft Advertising, productivity tools, and commerce surfaces.
Brands and advertisers retain explicit control over how agents behave, what they recommend, and where they appear.
AI assists with discovery, decision‑making, and execution, but responsibility and accountability remain with the business.

Microsoft consistently positions trust, control, and enterprise readiness as foundational to scaling agentic AI adoption.

Our recent releases of Copilot Checkout and Brand Agents represent accessible ways to play with our AI suite in commerce.

To ensure you’re prepared for this era:

Prepare clean, structured product and brand data so it can be surfaced effectively in AI‑driven experiences like Copilot and Brand Agents.
Think beyond campaigns and consider how your brand shows up inside AI‑powered decision moments, not just before or after them.
Use agentic AI as a force multiplier for speed and scale, while maintaining clear ownership over strategy, messaging, and outcomes.

Follow up question: Can you share any insights into how Copilot ads work from a targeting perspective? Any case studies or other data available that can be incorporated from a planning perspective?

A: Great question – there is no way to exclusively target Copilot as of now – instead you become eligible to serve there when you run Search, Shopping, Mulitmedia, and PMax campaigns. We’ve found that ads serving on Copilot have a 53% higher relevancy than SERPs (determined by conversions).

You might find this post by our brilliant Krishna Madhavan helpful on general AI ingestion principals https://about.ads.microsoft.com/en/blog/post/october-2025/optimizing-your-content-for-inclusion-in-ai-search-answers

Question: Could we have a client run straight to Amazon deep links via Microsoft Ads?

A: Yes! So long as the display url (i.e. the path) makes it clear that the products are your brand, it’s absolutely ok. Here are examples of what would and would not be compliant with policy:

Approved: amazon.com/bitesociety
Disapproved: amazon.com/gift/cookies

P.S. These cookies are delicious and if you ever find yourself in the Seattle area, getting them fresh is a treat ^_^

Question: What are some hidden gems in Microsoft Ads that advertisers might not know about?

A: Here are my personal favorites:

Impression Based Remarketing: build audiences to target, exclude, bid up/down based on impressions. So long as there’s at least one Audience ad campaign/ad group in the up to 20 sources, any campaign can speak to any campaign (CTV is the exception – it can be a source, but not a target). This is why I advise all brands to have an always on $5-$10 per day Audience ads campaign to be in the sources so PMax can speak to PMax, Search can speak to Search, and so on. It’s also worth noting that Audience ads in shopping campaigns (dynamic remarketing) is a powerful tool as well. Copilot impressions count for this.
Ads have been serving in Copilot for around three years. You are eligible to serve in Copilot if you’re running Search, Shopping, Multimedia, and PMax campaigns. Exact match is eligible to trigger a Copilot placement, it’s just that PMax has a 2.8X greater likelihood of serving there (this is not us weighting the serving – it’s just that PMax has an easier time adapting to the dynamic nature of AI surfaces).
Multimedia ads: these ads have their own spot on the Bing SERP (also eligible for Copilot placements) and only one advertiser will win that spot per query auction. It’s worth noting that since they are separate auctions, it’s possible to have a responsive search ad (RSA) and multimedia ad serve on the same SERP. They are a CPC ad type, so they’re also great fodder for Impression Based Remarketing (IBR).
Bid adjustments (including LinkedIn Profile Targeting): these work with autobidding on Microsoft and are a great way to communicate who/when/where to focus your budget. It’s worth noting that these are cumulative, so if you have three different eligible bid adjustments, they’ll all trigger.
Copilot ad assistance: PMax campaigns include really helpful Copilot ad assistance including helping with tone, full rewrites, and crawling your site to begin ad creative. It’s worth noting that if you’re not in love with the content Copilot comes up with, there’s a good chance your site isn’t easily understood by organic crawling. You can also use the PMax campaign builder to see how Microsoft understands your competitors (just don’t push the campaigns live with competitor urls).

Follow up question: And, where can we see Copilot Ads performance report, please?

A: As of now, there are no plans for a Copilot performance report due to privacy concerns – the feedback is heard that it’s important to you.

P.S. You all might find this MAI report useful https://microsoft.ai/news/its-about-time-the-copilot-usage-report-2025/

Question: Any chance we’ll see “seniority level” added to LinkedIn targeting?

Job function and Industry feel very similar, and can be too broad for what some B2B would want. Targeting an Owner, CEO, CMO or executive level could be much more in-line with what many advertisers want.

A: This is useful feedback – no firm plans yet, but I’ll take this back for review.

Question: What is the best way to position adding Microsoft Ads to a client’s mix these days? And do you have a great answer for us to use when we get hit with “but the traffic volume is so low there”?

A: Microsoft Ads represents the easiest way to connect with B2B customers at a discount. Through Microsoft Advertising’s premium inventory and partners you can reach over 1 billion humans in a way that keeps you in control (bid adjustments still work, ad group level settings, and full visibility into search terms that cost you money through clicks).

Before I joined Microsoft, I was always the Microsoft fangirl on my team because Microsoft represented a way to test keyword concepts at discount, find placements I’d want to exclude, as well as establish whether creative would work at scale. I also really love that we don’t force you to serve ads in the time zone of the account.

A silly additional thing I learned this week is that we allow “!” in headlines, so if your clients always felt frustrated about the lack of excitement in creative, Microsoft has you covered.

The reason I said yes to Microsoft is we fully embrace the “choose your own adventure” perspective on AI and account management. If you want to trust fall into automation and AI, you can. If you want to retain control (knowing you might not see as strong results), you can.

Follow up question: Quantifying that discount easily would really help. Any chance there are some general figures floating around that we could use?

A: Our forecasting tools and Audience Planner can be helpful there. Everyone is going to see different results, but as a general rule, I find starting with a roughly 30% decrease in CPCs is helpful to start (though budgets should remain around the same till the learning period is cleared).

It’s also worth noting that you can make changes to budgets/TCPA/TROAS up to 15% without triggering learning periods.

Question: Do you have any tips or time saving methods for navigating in the Microsoft Ads UI?

A: I’m going to say something I’m confident several of you won’t like: Copilot.

Copilot in the Microsoft Advertising UI is a really helpful tool to find tools and insights in your account. We know our current UI is a source of frustration and we’re actively working to fix it. That said, getting comfortable searching for tools through copilot as opposed to going through a menu taxonomy will likely serve you well beyond Microsoft.

It’s also important to remember that Microsoft likes ad group level settings more than Google (in this way we’re closer to Meta). So if you’re unsure where to find something, make sure to check both campaign and ad group level targeting.

Finally: LinkedIn data is done through “Professional demographics” as opposed to Audiences. It’s also worth noting that Shopping search term data is available in the “Keyword” section as opposed to being called “search term” in the menu.