Unlocking the Power of Microsoft Ads in 2026

Most advertisers looking to get into the PPC space consider Microsoft a sort of afterthought - something you could do in the future if you ever have more money than Google Ads could spend.  However, Microsoft Ads is worth looking into for many reasons and can be adaptable into a broader, farther-reaching strategy due to the fact that Microsoft Ads has an entirely different audience as well as different feature targeting that makes it uniquely beneficial for B2B.

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Let’s start with Microsoft’s audience.  Microsoft itself - along with Microsoft Ads - has a well-educated, more affluent audience.  This is due, in part, to the many businesses that use Microsoft as the backbone of their ecosystem.

Microsoft itself says its display network consists of 36% of users who have graduated from college and 37% of users who have income in the top 25%.  This also gives the users of Microsoft some pretty hefty purchasing power. 

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In addition to this, we’ve seen Microsoft budgets much lower across the board.  Granted, there is less traffic within Microsoft. However, this plays a part in making competition much lower than across Google Ads. Along with this, CPCs are typically lower across Microsoft - 30-70% lower - depending on the market.  This allows advertisers to gain higher ad positions with better efficiency all at a lower cost. 

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Microsoft also has some pretty fantastic B2B targeting capabilities that Google Ads lacks.  One in particular is professional targeting across LinkedIn audiences.  You can target your ads to users based on their company, industry or job function.  This works similarly to audience targeting within Google Ads where you can either add a bid adjustment or solely target that audience.

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And while you can target a host of LinkedIn users using Microsoft’s targeting, many businesses are found there as well.  Over 3.7 million companies globally use Microsoft 365 from large enterprises to small businesses, and many business-centric users can be found within the Microsoft ecosystem (Bing, Edge, Outlook, MSN and games) with Edge as their default browser.  These same users are searching across Bing, Outlook or within Windows apps.

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Probably the best part about Microsoft is how easy it is to get started.  If you are already running ads across Google, Meta or Pinterest you can easily import them into Microsoft in a couple of easy steps. 

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Simply click on “import” on the left hand side, select your platform and follow the instructions:

If you only want to import certain campaigns, then make sure you choose that in the workflow.  Microsoft will also want you to set up an import schedule, but you can either opt out of that and choose a one time import or pause the schedule once you have done the initial import.  

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We’ve found it better to optimize Microsoft campaigns separately within Microsoft as opposed to importing the changes you’ve made within Google into Microsoft.  Once you have your campaigns imported into Microsoft, you will find that many of the navigation options are quite similar to Google Ads, making it easy to transition from one platform to the other.

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Microsoft Ads should be viewed as a powerful, essential platform rather than a mere afterthought to a broader PPC strategy. Its distinct audience—which is notably more educated and affluent—coupled with its lower competition and cost-per-click, offers a strong advantage for advertisers, especially in the B2B sector with its unique professional targeting capabilities via LinkedIn. Furthermore, the seamless import process from platforms like Google, Meta, or Pinterest makes integrating Microsoft Ads into your existing efforts exceptionally easy, positioning it as a highly efficient and effective way to broaden your reach and boost performance in 2026.

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