Microsoft Advertising: the channel most U.S. service firms underuse

Across our current client book, Microsoft Advertising delivers a lower cost per acquisition than the alternative in eleven of fourteen accounts. Here is why, and how to structure for it.

The auction is genuinely less crowded

In the U.S. professional-services and trade categories we work in, cost per click on the Microsoft network typically runs thirty to fifty per cent below equivalent terms elsewhere. That is not a permanent structural advantage — it narrows every year — but it is real today, and for a contractor paying $28 a click it is the difference between a channel that works and one that does not.

The audience skews toward buyers with budget

The network reaches a substantial share of desktop users on corporate machines and a demographic that skews older and higher-income. For a commercial HVAC firm or an accountancy practice, that is closer to the buying committee than a mobile-first consumer audience. For a direct-to-consumer app, it may not be.

Structure that works

• Do not simply import and forget. Import is a starting point; match types, negatives and audience settings all behave differently and need a separate optimisation pass.
• Use LinkedIn profile targeting. Company, industry and job-function targeting layered onto search campaigns is unique to this platform and it is materially useful for B2B accounts.
• Import offline conversions. If your CRM knows which enquiries became customers, feed that back. Bidding toward closed revenue instead of raw form fills is the single highest-leverage change available in most accounts.
• Run separate budgets. Sharing a budget pool across networks hides which one is actually performing.
• Watch the search partner network. Review its performance separately every month and exclude it if the quality does not hold up.

What to measure in the first sixty days

Cost per qualified lead, not cost per click. Impression share lost to budget versus rank, so you know whether to spend more or bid better. And the negative keyword list length — if it has not grown in a month, nobody is looking at the search terms report.

Where it does not work

Very low-ticket consumer ecommerce, anything targeting an under-25 audience, and hyper-local businesses in small markets where the query volume simply is not there. We have recommended against it in three accounts this year and said so plainly.

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