Most e-commerce brands ignore Microsoft Ads. Big mistake. Spending floods into Google and Facebook, where everyone scrapes for tiny wins in noisy bidding wars. Off to the side, Microsoft’s ad space hums—less noise, lower prices, full of shoppers flying under the radar. Nearly a third of American desktop searches pass through Bing, Yahoo, or AOL, but most teams barely glance its way, missing chances hidden in plain sight.
What stands out is how much less Microsoft Ads usually charges—between 30% and 70% less than Google’s rates. Identical searches, far smaller bills. Those hitting the links tend to be older, earn more, plus show stronger buying habits. Bing users are 34% more likely to have a college degree, and 36% of searchers fall in the top 25% of household income.
Here’s the thing—smart agencies back Microsoft Ads for online stores because it works quietly but well. They see what others miss: cheaper clicks that convert just fine. Most advertisers ignore it, leaving room to grab attention without heavy competition. Let’s break down exactly how they turn this overlooked platform into a revenue machine.
The Hidden Advantage: Better Buyers at Lower Costs
It’s true, Google runs most searches. Yet being on top brings issues—like squashing rivals so hard prices go wild. Microsoft builds things another way.
Who Actually Uses Microsoft Search
Picture someone at a desk, maybe mid-morning. Built right into their laptop is Bing, waiting there inside Windows. They open Edge without thinking—Bing shows up first. Typing searches between meetings, they look things up while working. These aren’t casual users. Decisions happen here, during office hours. Buying software, comparing vendors—that kind of task.Â
This matters for ecommerce. Shopping for business tools changes how people behave online. Not while walking around checking phones at noon, but later—sitting down, focused, using a desktop computer, most often running Windows. And they’re less likely to use ad blockers, which means your tracking actually works. That small difference makes campaigns more predictable.
Picture this: a huge group of Americans—more than 44 million each month—search on Bing. That gap? It means the faces you see that others walk past every day. Real folks, different habits, often overlooked.
The Cost Arbitrage Nobody Talks About
Profit comes down to this number. Microsoft cost-per-click usually is between $1.50 and $2.80, while Google ranges from $2.85 up to $5.26. Such a spread isn’t just notable—being on one side means earnings, the other means losing funds fast.
Spending less per click opens up room to explore extra search terms. Trying out different headlines becomes possible when costs drop. Staying active in bidding wars gets easier with smaller charges each time. Ecommerce brands living on small profits find this shift changes everything. Growth starts looking real instead of out of reach.
LinkedIn Targeting: The Secret Weapon for High-Ticket Sales
Here’s the part that feels unbalanced. Only Microsoft Ads offers targeting access to LinkedIn user details like job role, workplace, field of work, or level of responsibility. Since Microsoft also runs LinkedIn, they’ve built those insights right into their advertising system.
Why This Matters for E-commerce
Think you need this only for B2B? Think again. High-priced consumer goods see sharp results when agencies tap into LinkedIn’s audience tools.
Think high-end suitcases. Aim for Senior Partners in elite law offices— they fly often, carry cash. How about expensive watches? Focus on big-name execs at major corporations. Giving gifts through businesses? Find HR leaders in firms that employ five hundred or more.
Fine-tune bids based on who’s searching – boost them for closer-fit customers. Reach anyone looking for what you offer, yet prioritize those resembling your target audience. Allocation shifts naturally toward better opportunities. Spend more where it counts, less where it doesn’t.
Real Results from Professional Targeting
Emirates NBD used this strategy with InMobi Advertising. By combining search ads with LinkedIn-based audience targeting, they maintained 95% Share of Voice while cutting cost-per-acquisition by 11%.
It’s what happens when accuracy takes over. Not only do they need your product, but their wallet matches the price, too. Precision changes everything.
Product Feed Optimization: The Foundation of Shopping Success
If your product feed sucks, nothing else matters. That’s why agencies fixate on Microsoft Merchant Center—performance lives or dies by what gets listed, its visibility, and even spending patterns. Everything hinges there.
AI-Powered Feed Enhancement
Nowadays, smart agencies skip typing titles by hand. Instead, they turn to Large Language Models that reshape product details into natural-sounding phrases. These tweaks match how actual buyers type when searching online. Real results come from mirroring everyday words, not stiff labels.
Instead of “SKU-12345 Men’s Leather Wallet Brown,” AI rewrites it as “Brown Leather Bifold Wallet for Men with RFID Protection.” This is what people actually search. Matching user intent matters more than internal codes ever did.
Missed details—say, GTINs or brand names—affect how strongly you show up. When those gaps are filled, visibility climbs in Copilot chats plus search outcomes. Placement leans on that confidence ranking rising behind the scenes.
Supplemental Feeds for Agile Updates
Here’s a game-changer agencies use: Supplemental Feeds let you update specific product details without re-uploading your entire catalog.
Running a flash sale? Update prices instantly. New stock arrives for seasonal goods? Push those updates in real time. For online stores racing to stay competitive, speed in pricing and product access makes all the difference.
The Labelizer Strategy: Sorting Winners from Losers
Not all products deserve the same budget. Agencies use what’s called the “Labelizer” approach—categorizing products by performance to dictate bidding.
Here’s how it breaks down:
- Stars: High ROAS, high volume. These get maximum budget and aggressive bids. You’re printing money here, so push hard.
- Helpers: Good ROAS, moderate volume. These steady ones keep things moving. Stick with them because they already do their job well. Change isn’t always better when results stay consistent.
- Ghosts: Not every visitor turns into a buyer. Often, the message misses its mark—confusing details or weak layout on the page are usually to blame. Pages that look rushed lose trust fast. A stalled sale might mean unclear benefits. Rebuild those parts or let them go.
- Losers: Low ROAS, high spend. Reduce bids or pause entirely. They’re bleeding cash.
- Zeros: Nothing showing up means zero interest. Try tweaking how things are named so people notice. Change the labels used to sort stuff online. Suddenly, more eyes might land on it.
Labels added via extra feeds let agencies shape detailed ad plans. For top performers, separate campaigns run with bigger goals instead. Those rated zero enter trial setups where tweaks aim to boost results. Such precision defines the path to maximize ROAS.
Performance Max: AI-Driven Cross-Channel Reach
Performance Max campaigns are where Microsoft Ads really flexes. PMax combines Search, Shopping, and Audience placements into one AI-optimized campaign.
How Agencies Use PMax for Ecommerce
Picture this: toss your product details, images, and a profit goal into one spot. Without fuss, AI handles the rest. Ads show up where people browse—on Bing, pop onto Yahoo, slide into MSN pages, appear in Outlook mail, sometimes even light up on an Xbox screen. One setup. Everywhere at once.
Early results show PMax can reduce cost-per-acquisition by 32% while lifting ROAS significantly. Trouble is, it runs on data. Without enough conversion history, AI has nothing to learn from.
Real PMax Success: Kalley Electronics
One major electronics retailer named Kalley shifted fully to Performance Max. What happened next surprised many – ROAS climbed fast, going from 12x to 20x within three months. Not far behind, the typical sale amount rose sharply by 53% when measured against different search tools.
What made it work? The AI pinpointed customers ready to pay extra, not those chasing discounts.
Tracking That Actually Works: UET and Server-Side Conversions
You can’t optimize what you can’t measure. Agencies nail tracking setup because browser-based pixels alone don’t cut it anymore.
The Hybrid Tracking Model
Smart agencies deploy both client-side and server-side tracking. The Universal Event Tracking (UET) tag captures browser-based signals, while the Conversions API (CAPI) sends data directly from your server.
Here is why one might consider both approaches. Browser tracking often fails because ad blockers, tight iOS privacy rules, or limited cookies get in the way. What happens instead? Data slips through the cracks. Server-side methods step around those obstacles quietly. Conversions that vanish under normal conditions show up clearly here. A number of agencies have seen conversion tracking rise by as much as 34.2% after switching. That gap makes a difference.
Enhanced Conversions for Match Rate Lift
When you send hashed emails or phone details using Enhanced Conversions, agencies can link your customers to Microsoft IDs more accurately. Matching improves when signals align closely—this leads to clearer insights on what works. Clearer insight shapes how bids are adjusted over time.
Microsoft Audience Network: Native Placements Beyond Search
Imagine someone already looking for what you offer. That is a search. What happens before that moment, though? Ads through Microsoft Audience Network (MSAN) show up where people spend time—like on MSN, Outlook, or Microsoft Start.Â
Why Native Ads Convert
MSAN uses native ad formats that blend into content feeds. Not a flashy banner yelling for attention – just a quiet mention where it fits naturally. Think of it like a suggestion from a friend, not an ad forced between paragraphs. People keep scrolling without feeling pushed. The result? More eyes stay on your offer. It feels less like selling, more like fitting in.
Agencies use MSAN for two things: top-of-funnel prospecting and bottom-funnel retargeting. Lifestyle imagery performs way better here than simple product shots. Show your camping gear in a mountain setting, not on a white background.
MSAN Best Practices from Agencies
Start with a $1.50 bid to gather initial data without overspending. Test at least three different images per ad group to see what resonates. And critically, review publisher reports regularly to exclude domains that burn budget without converting.
One thing agencies learned: you need at least 10,000 monthly site visitors to give the AI enough data for optimization. Below that threshold, results get random.
The Import-and-Optimize Playbook
Starting fresh isn’t common among agencies when setting up Microsoft campaigns. Instead, they bring over top results from Google Ads—then adjust them to fit how people search on Microsoft.
Post-Import Cleanup
Just importing isn’t enough. Smart adjustments include:
- Reducing bids by 20% to account for lower competition. A click costing $3 on Google could cost just $2 on Microsoft.
- Some desktop searches bring odd questions that miss the mark. Adding more negative keywords helps skip those mismatches.
- Moving from broad match toward phrase and exact match to maintain high intent and control costs.
Action Extensions for Higher CTR
Here’s something Google doesn’t quite have: Action Extensions add clear CTA buttons directly in the search ad—”Buy Now,” “Compare,” “Download.” These pre-qualify users and guide them to the next step, often improving click-through rates while reducing wasted spend.
Case Study: Feed Optimization Drives 60% Revenue Growth
A twist in strategy began when Tradesy, a fashion marketplace, sought faster growth despite tough conditions. Instead of pushing harder alone, they brought in Metric Theory to rethink how ads ran on Microsoft. The shift wasn’t loud—just precise, deliberate, different.
The strategy focused on a granular shopping campaign structure powered by optimized product feeds with custom labels for designer brands and high-performing items.
Results speak for themselves: 60% growth in total paid search revenue, 19% increase in new customer ROAS, and a 44% jump in average order value.
This shift in average order value (AOV) matters most. Not only do bigger spenders purchase more at once, but they tend to come back later. The tech giant’s well-off user base fits perfectly here.
The Future: Copilot and Conversational Commerce
Betting on artificial intelligence, Microsoft pushes Copilot into search. Rather than spitting out links, it talks back like a person would. Questions get replies, not pages. Suggestions pop up mid-conversation—products appear without leaving the thread. This isn’t your old way of searching.
When it comes to ecommerce agencies, focusing on natural-sounding search phrases matters. Product details must be clear, organized, and filled out fully. Without full context, the system can’t back a suggestion firmly.
Early adopters who nail this will dominate. The brands still submitting bare-minimum feeds? They’ll get left behind as Copilot picks competitors with better data.
Bottom Line: Microsoft Ads Isn’t Optional Anymore
Turns out, agencies noticed something. Microsoft Ads does way more than just fill gaps. This platform stands strong on its own. Its benefits show up nowhere else. That changes how people approach it.
Some companies thrive on Microsoft Ads without simply launching ads. What sets them apart? Mixing tracking methods smartly. Feeds boosted by artificial intelligence play a role, too. Targeting gets sharper through layered precision tools. Progress keeps moving because adjustments never stop happening.
Most agencies already get how key Microsoft is. Falling behind means losing real cash, more than you might think. Staying slow won’t help now.
