Far too often, Microsoft Ads is an afterthought. Agencies frequently treat it as a bolt-on to boost client retainers. In-house brands ignore it because it’s simply not Google. Too many view it as a platform where you just “Import from Google,” set a lower budget, and hope for the best.
But if you’re treating Microsoft Ads like a smaller-brother version of Google Ads, you could be leaving genuine, incremental sales on the table.
For the past 12 months, I have consistently driven close to the same amount of revenue from Microsoft as I have from Google, despite spending significantly less.
That’s not just because the traffic is cheaper or the CPCs are slightly lower.
It’s because I treat Microsoft Ads as its own platform, with its own users, quirks, and opportunities. In this article, I’ll walk you through the five key steps I took to make Microsoft Ads a major revenue-driving channel.
As you can see from the image below, B2B users convert more often and spend more money than those shopping on Google.
Step 1: Don’t Import Everything From Google Ads
This is the biggest mistake advertisers make. Importing Google campaigns straight into Microsoft might save time in the short term but it almost always leads to poorer performance than an approach built specifically for the platform.
Microsoft Ads is not a carbon-copy of Google. The users are different. Their behavior is different. Just as you wouldn’t import your Google Ads campaigns into Meta and expect great results, you shouldn’t expect that in Microsoft. Microsoft deserves its own place in your PPC strategy.
Of course, some assets can be reused. High performing headlines, descriptions or extensions from Google can and should be tested within your Microsoft account. However, when it comes to campaign structure, bidding, and targeting, you need to start from the ground up. Tailor your setup to how Microsoft users search and convert, not how your Google account happens to be built.
Step 2: Embrace Consolidation
One of the biggest challenges on Microsoft is scale. Fewer people use Bing as their default search engine, which means fewer impressions, clicks, and conversions. And when you’re working with limited data, your structure matters even more.
In Google, I typically run 10 to 15 non-brand campaigns at any one time. On Microsoft? Just four or five.
Why? Just like Google, Microsoft’s algorithmic bidding needs volume to work well. If your conversion data is spread too thin, Smart Bidding won’t perform. By consolidating into fewer campaigns, I can push more data through each one, helping the algorithm make better decisions faster.
It also simplifies management. With a lean structure, it’s easier to spot trends, make optimisations, and understand what’s actually driving performance.
Step 3: Leverage Dynamic Search Ads (DSAs)
I relied heavily on DSAs, particularly for long-tail coverage and product discovery. Rather than trying to build out exhaustive keyword lists for every product or category, I let DSA do the heavy lifting. I structure my DSA campaigns, using a URL feed, around the most popular brands or top-converting categories, then let the system find relevant queries I might never have thought of.
This approach fills in the gaps and ensures we capture incremental traffic that standard search campaigns often miss.
For advertisers with large product inventories, this is where a lot of untapped value sits.
Step 4: When It’s Working, Leave It Alone
It’s easy to fall into the trap of over-optimisation. You spot performance improvements, and your first instinct is to segment further, create more campaigns, split your audiences, create more specific ad groups.
Don’t.
At least, not until the data supports it.
If a campaign is working well, resist the urge to fix what isn’t broken. The more you fragment your setup, the more you dilute your conversion data. Every new campaign or ad group has to build its own learning before it performs. On Microsoft, where volume is lower, that can take much longer.
Instead, maintain consolidation as long as possible. If and when you do segment, make sure both the original campaign and the new one will have enough data to function effectively and don’t create new campaigns for your best performers. Leave the best performers in the high conversion campaign and segment low performers. Otherwise, you risk stalling performance and starting from scratch.
Step 5: Scale Spend
This part is often overlooked, but it’s where the real upside is. Once you’ve got a structure that works, one that’s consolidated, backed by reliable data and consistently profitable, start pushing budget.
If your ROAS is holding, you’ve got the perfect reason to reinvest aggressively. You don’t need to hit parity with Google in spend to justify the effort. In fact, you probably never will but you can get close in terms of the revenue generated.
The goal isn’t to match your Google Ads strategy on Microsoft. It’s to find what works within Microsoft’s ecosystem and amplify it as much as you possibly can.
Final Thoughts
Too many advertisers treat Microsoft Ads as a copy-paste platform. They import everything from Google, hope for the best, and then write it off when performance disappoints. We’ve all heard “we’ve tried Microsoft, it doesn’t work”. What if the problem wasn’t the platform? What if the problem was the approach?
When you treat Microsoft Ads with the same strategic thinking as Google, the results can follow. Start from scratch. Build lean. Leverage DSAs. Be patient. Then scale.
If you’re in B2B e-commerce and already doing well on Google, Microsoft is a massive opportunity that can drive serious incremental revenue. Just don’t expect shortcuts to work.
