At Microsoft Advertising, we’re always pushing the boundaries to help you achieve more with less. Our latest product updates harness cutting-edge technology to revolutionise the way you work. From Generative AI transforming search and advertising, to the global availability of Performance Max campaigns, we’re empowering you to work smarter, not harder.
To continue our mission, we’re making updates to the bidding options available for native ads in the Microsoft Advertising Platform. On 30 April, manual cost per click (CPC) bidding will no longer be available for newly created native campaigns. Starting on 13 May, all existing image and feed campaigns on a manual CPC bid strategy will upgrade to enhanced CPC. This upgrade will be completed by 17 May.
Enhanced CPC has been proven to elevate your performance
Advertisers using enhanced CPC saw an average of 6% lower cost per acquisition compared with manual CPC
Benefits of enhanced CPC
- With enhanced CPC, you set your ad group bids, and Microsoft Advertising automatically adjusts your bids in real time to increase your chances for a conversion. Your bid will go higher on auctions that are more likely to convert and lower on auctions less likely to convert.
- The base bids you continue to set will always be honoured as the primary lever by the bidding strategy. Those bids will be optimised at the time of the auction to maximise performance and drive towards more conversions, allowing you to stay on top of the dynamic marketplace.
- When using eCPC, your average CPC will not exceed the base bid that you set.
- Enhanced CPC uses many different auction signals to help drive the best results, including search queries, bid modifiers, location, device, ad copy, and many more. All these combined signals help to drive informed decisions to drive better advertiser performance.
- Enhanced CPC works in combination with any technology providers that you use to manage campaigns. eCPC will always use the bids set by your bid management tool as a starting point before applying any adjustment.
More automated bidding options to meet your goals
We’ve made advancements in our automated bidding technology for Audience ads in recent months to give advertisers even more choice of strategies to help achieve your campaign goals.
If enhanced CPC isn’t suited to your goals, you can also choose to move your native campaigns to maximise conversions, with the option to set your target CPA. Choosing this bid strategy allows you to drive more conversions, while maintaining control over the CPA goal you’re trying to achieve.
Timeline for upgrading to enhanced CPC
The transition from manual bidding to enhanced CPC starts on 30 April. On this date, any new native image and feed campaigns created will no longer see the option for manual CPC. On 13 April, we’ll start to upgrade all existing native campaigns to enhanced CPC. This transition will be completed by 17 May and throughout this week, any campaigns using manual CPC will move to enhanced CPC.
This change only affects native image and feed campaigns on manual CPC, it doesn’t impact native, display, or video campaigns that use a manual CPM strategy, or Connected TV ads on cost per completed view. This doesn’t impact search campaigns extended to the audience placements, which already leverage eCPC and our full suite of automated bidding solutions.
Getting prepared
There’s no action required from you to prepare for this change. However, there are some areas that you can optimise to ensure you’re set up for success.
- Conversion Tracking: For best results, we strongly recommend using enhanced CPC in conjunction with conversion tracking. Validate that you have your UET tag on all pages of the site and that you’ve set up your conversion goals. Although this isn’t a requirement for enhanced CPC, it can help to improve performance by providing more signals.
- Offline conversions: If you rely on offline conversions, it’s recommended to upload your offline conversion data daily. This can be done easily by using a scheduled recurring import.
- Attribution model: Consider changing your conversion goal attribution to “last touch.” This will allow you to optimise automated bidding based on both click‑based and view‑through conversions (conversions as a result of ad impressions). When users see native ads, they don’t always click right away, but viewing this ad plays an important role in influencing their behaviour and their path to conversion.
By following these steps, you can make sure that your campaigns are ready to succeed, deliver the best results, and meet your marketing objectives. If you want to stay ahead of the game, you don’t need to wait for your campaigns to switch to enhanced CPC—begin using automated bidding strategies today to help you reach your goals and improve your campaign performance.