Microsoft Ads Management for UK Businesses

Microsoft Advertising is the paid search platform behind Bing, and the ads appear well beyond Bing itself.

• Bing search results, including Bing on Windows devices and Edge.
• Yahoo and DuckDuckGo, which both take search ads from Microsoft.
• Ecosia, which serves Microsoft results and ads.
• Copilot, where Microsoft is placing ads inside AI answers.
• The Microsoft Audience Network, covering MSN, Outlook.com and partner publishers.

That reach is the practical reason it is worth running. You are not only buying Bing traffic, you are buying every search surface Microsoft supplies.

Fewer advertisers bid on the same keywords, so auction prices sit lower. In most UK accounts we look at, the same keyword set clears at a lower cost per click than it does on Google. [STAT: confirm source]

The trade off is volume. Microsoft holds a much smaller share of UK search than Google, so a cheaper click does not automatically mean more sales. It means the sales you do get tend to cost less to acquire, which is worth having when Google CPCs have climbed to the edge of your margin.

It skews older, more desktop heavy and often higher household income than Google, largely because Bing is the default search on Windows and in Edge.

That profile suits some businesses and not others. Considered purchases, home improvement, B2B services, finance, professional and trade sectors tend to do well. Products aimed at under 25s, or anything bought almost entirely on a phone, usually do not find enough volume to be worth the management time.

Microsoft also offers LinkedIn profile targeting, which no other search platform has. You can target or bid adjust by company, industry and job function on a search campaign, which is genuinely useful for B2B where you are otherwise guessing at who is searching.

No. The import tool copies structure, keywords and ad text well enough, but it carries across Google bid levels into a cheaper auction and drops or mangles several settings along the way.

• Bids imported at Google levels, so you overpay from day one.
• Audience lists that do not map across and quietly stop applying.
• Assets and extensions that partly transfer and need rebuilding.
• Location and radius targeting that resets to broader settings.
• Conversion tracking that does not exist until the UET tag is placed and goals are rebuilt.

The full list of what breaks is in our guide to importing Google Ads campaigns into Microsoft Ads.

Account build or rework, then ongoing management by Dan directly, with no outsourcing and no account manager layer.

• Account setup or a rebuild of an imported account.
• UET tag implementation and conversion goal setup, checked against GA4.
• Search, Shopping, Performance Max and Audience Network campaigns as they fit.
• LinkedIn profile targeting where the offer is B2B.
• Search term review, negatives, bidding and budget control every week.
• Reporting that shows Microsoft separately from Google, not merged.

For ecommerce catalogues the feed side has its own requirements, covered on Microsoft Ads for ecommerce.

When the search volume is not there, or when your Google account is not working yet.

If Google Ads is losing money, adding a second platform spreads the same problem across two accounts. Fix the first channel, then expand. If your keywords return very little Microsoft volume, or your buyers are young and mobile only, we will tell you that and leave it alone rather than bill you for managing an empty account. The honest comparison is on Microsoft Ads vs Google Ads.