4 new Microsoft features, and 5 other December updates

Microsoft has just announced new products and features, beta tests, upcoming features, and the expansion of two exiting products already in their portfolio.

Why we care. Microsoft continues to adapt and introduce new features and products to compete with Google with the advertiser experience in mind. Advertisers on Microsoft should test the ever-expanding suite of ad offerings

Now available

Auto-generated remarketing lists. There are now three types of lists to boost performance. Microsoft says “Smart remarketing lists have been proven to drive increased performance across the Microsoft Search and Audience Networks. Advertisers who leverage these lists see a 92% increase in click-through rate (CTR) and a 45% reduction in cost-per-acquisition (CPA) when they use these lists on the Microsoft Search Network.1 On the Audience Network, we see a 67% improvement in CTR and an 11% reduction in CPA.”

Ad schedule now with a calendar view. There is now a new calendar view in the ad scheduling section of the Microsoft Ads dashboard. This provides you with a clear overview of all the times when your ads will serve with your default bid (0% bid adjustment), a positive bid adjustment, a negative bid adjustment, and all the times when your campaigns will not deliver.

Expanded coverage of Hotel Price ads and Property Promotion ads. Hotel ads are now in 147 markets, and in 138 markets for Property Promotion ads. With Property Promotion ads, Microsoft has also expanded significantly beyond Bing Maps, and they are now shown on the Microsoft Bing SERP, in Microsoft Bing Images, Microsoft Bing Videos, and on Microsoft Bing Travel.

Flyer extensions. Available globally, Flyer extensions allow you to showcase your image flyers next to text ads. Advertisers can create up to five Flyer Extensions per account, and the system will uniformly keep them in the rotation. The extensions are only available for text ads right now but could soon also be available for shopping.

Coming soon

New folder capabilities within Asset Library. This month, there will be new folder functionality to help you better organize your assets.

In beta

Online conversions update—retract and restate. With this new functionality, you can either update (restate) the revenue value associated or delete (retract) the conversion. This is useful in scenarios like returned or cancelled orders, partial returns or reduced conversion value, or correcting a data error, allowing you for more flexibility and accuracy.

Not new

Video ads on the Microsoft Audience Network. Last month Microsoft announced that video ads were now being supported within the audience network. Those video ads are now generally available in the US, CA, UK, FR, DE, AU, and NZ. 

Performance Max imports. Performance Max imports were introduced a couple of months ago. But earlier this month, Microsoft made the functionality available globally. Advertisers will know it’s been enabled when you see a notification in the top right corner of your screen on Microsoft Advertising online.

Sunsetted

Auto-apply APIs. Microsoft is sunsetting some specialized Auto-apply APIs that are available in common Campaign & Bulk APIs. For more information on this, check out out their help section.

Dig deeper. You can read the full update on the Microsoft blog.

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