Microsoft broadens its advertising reach by activating its Audience Network in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Spain, Mexico, Peru, and Venezuela.
If you have active campaigns in Microsoft Advertising, you may have noticed a slight increase in the number of clicks and, consequently, in your ad spend. The reason: Microsoft has enabled its Audience Network by default for all advertisers running campaigns targeting audiences in Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Peru, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and Venezuela. According to Microsoft, the rollout of campaigns to the Audience Network will take place gradually over the coming months — meaning traffic from this channel will likely continue to rise in the weeks ahead.
With the Audience Network now active in these new markets, some advertisers may see unintended effects like increased costs or a drop in campaign performance. At the same time, this new channel creates an opportunity to expand your reach and build dedicated “audience campaigns.” This campaign type allows you to define your target audience with great precision and optimize results using the capabilities of Microsoft’s AI systems.
What is the Microsoft Audience Network?
The Microsoft Audience Network is made up of various sites and services owned by Microsoft (such as msn.com, outlook.com, and the Microsoft Edge browser) as well as a selection of partner sites (such as CBS Sports and FOX Business).
Once the Audience Network is active, your ads become eligible to be selected by Microsoft’s systems and shown across its advertising inventory. To determine which ads to show at any given time, Microsoft uses an AI system that assesses whether a user is potentially interested in your products, services, or content. If so, Microsoft uses the text and images you’ve set up in your Microsoft Advertising account to generate different types of ads (text, image, and product). This allows Microsoft to maximize the reach of your advertising while staying aligned with the goals you’ve defined for your campaigns.
Image, text, and product ads from the Microsoft Audience Network
How can I disable the Audience Network in my account?
Microsoft enabled its Audience Network without prior consent from advertisers in all accounts targeting the countries listed above. This change may affect your results, and you may want to disable it for some or all of your campaigns. To do so, you’ll need to exclude Microsoft’s own sites from the campaigns where you don’t want to use the Audience Network: msn.com, outlook.com, and bing.com.
Excluding Microsoft Audience Network websites from a campaign
Additionally, you can also increase or decrease your bids for ads shown through the Audience Network. To set this adjustment, go to “Settings,” then select “Advanced campaign settings” > “Other settings” > “Audience ads.”
How can I view Audience Network performance?
Checking Audience Network performance in your account is straightforward. Simply go to the “Campaigns” or “Ad Groups” section and choose the “Network” segment from the icon list at the top of the page. Results for the Audience Network will then appear in the “audience” row beneath each of your campaigns or ad groups.
Segmenting results by network type
What can I use the Audience Network for?
If your budget is limited, it’s a good idea to disable the Audience Network or monitor its results regularly to prevent your costs from climbing over the coming weeks. On the other hand, the Audience Network gives you the opportunity to drive more traffic for your best-performing campaigns and to build highly targeted audience campaigns.
Like any AI system, Microsoft’s relies on the volume of available data to decide when showing an ad is most likely to deliver results. If your industry generates high traffic, Microsoft will be better positioned to determine when an ad is likely to perform well. Even so, in the early stages, how you configure this new option will be key to getting the results you want.
