Relevance and quality policies
Advertisers and consumers both benefit when they have positive experiences with Microsoft Advertising. To achieve this, please follow the policies about relevance and quality on this page. These requirements focus on four core aspects of your campaign that affect user experience: keyword relevancy, ad copy, landing page and site user experience, and landing page and site content quality.
How does this policy affect your ad delivery?
- Advertisers with more relevant keywords and higher quality ads and landing pages are usually rewarded with more prominent ad positions or a lower cost-per-click (CPC).
- Less relevant keywords and low-quality ads and landing pages might result in less favorable ad positions or a higher CPC.
- In some cases, the ad might not appear at all. Please check the Marketplace Exclusion section below for scenarios in which ads or sites may be completely excluded from the marketplace.
System quality
To maintain a quality marketplace, all advertisers are required to complete Advertiser Identity Verification (AIV) and successfully add a payment method. AIV is required for all newly created accounts. Please note that this includes new accounts created within your existing Manager Account if the contact information is different from previously verified data. Accounts that have not completed verification may still serve with the exception of the following scenarios:
- Advertisers whose ads will serve in the European Economic Area (EEA) must complete AIV within 30 days of account creation to be eligible to continue serving ads in the EEA.
- If AIV is not complete within 30 days, eligibility to serve ads in the EEA will be suspended until successful completion of AIV.
- Advertiser account has been flagged by systematic checks.
- Ads will not serve globally until successful completion of AIV.
- Advertisers whose account has been suspended, who have not already completed AIV.
- Successful completion of AIV will be the first step to appeal the suspension.
In rare instances, and due to suspicious changes detected, Microsoft may place a temporary hold for up to 30 days on accounts to ensure the security of our system and customers. These holds will be removed automatically, no action is required from the advertiser.
To ensure a positive user experience, and maintain ad and network quality, we may deactivate or delete accounts that have been inactive for over 15 months or remove non-performing keywords and ads from our platform. We also reserve the right to limit the number of keywords and ads that you upload or retain at any given time. In addition, we reserve the right to restrict ads serving on keywords in the following categories:
- Weapons
- Adult
- Pharmaceuticals
- Gambling
- Trademark (this does not apply to trademarks owned by the advertiser)
Keyword relevancy
Using the right techniques in choosing keywords and building ads not only drives user engagement, but it also helps maintain the ROI of the marketplace for all advertisers.
Keywords should be relevant. This means your site should be a satisfactory destination for users, based on a primary user intent of the keyword(s) you select.
Your keywords should relate directly to either:
- The specific range of products, services, or content on your landing page.
- The general content, purpose, and theme of your site.
Please note: Extremely popular or trending queries may be subject to a higher standard of relevancy and ads must fully align with the primary user intent of the keywords/queries to participate.