Blog post
Microsoft Audience Ads expansion and other updates for April
Welcome again to the Microsoft Advertising product roundup for April. The first quarter of the calendar year has closed, and we’ve now sprung forward into another exciting period for Microsoft Advertising. Just this past month since our last roundup, we’ve launched support for managing Audience Campaigns in Editor, a new image-suggesting Ad Creator, more announcements for ads in Automotive and Professional Services, and a big milestone in helping streamline reporting. If you’d also like to read more about how to enhance your data maturity and automation, look no further than our blogs on those topics this month.
Additionally, if you’re interested in digesting these product updates in a live form, we’re now releasing quarterly product roundups on our webcast page, so be sure to check those out as well.
For April, we have lots of market expansions, mobile app enhancements, and a few upcoming betas to share. Let’s dive in!
This month’s top story: Microsoft Audience Network market expansion
This month, Microsoft Audience Ads, our native advertising solution, will be available across 39 new markets. APAC markets include India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Hong Kong SAR, Japan, and Taiwan. EMEA markets are Albania, Andorra, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Monaco, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Poland, Portugal, Romania, San Marino, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Turkey, and Vatican City.
The Microsoft Audience Network connects you to millions of people across devices via high-quality, brand-safe native ad placements, including MSN, Microsoft Edge, Outlook.com, and select partners.
Smart Campaigns now generally available in three new countries
If you’re a smaller advertiser, Smart Campaigns are our simple and easy way for businesses to advertise on the Microsoft Search Network. For those looking to do so via Smart Campaigns in Canada, France, and Germany, you are now in luck! We’ve expanded to those three markets just this past month, so now you can save time by automating your campaign creation and management process with Microsoft Advertising.
Check out our latest webcast on Smart Campaigns and how you can get started with them.
Expansions to our travel ad experiences
Finally, as more and more people are resuming and expanding their travel plans, so too have our travel advertising experiences! Cruise Ads, announced in February, have now become available for our United Kingdom advertisers. Tours and Activities Ads, the premium ad type unique to Microsoft Advertising, are now available in our Latin American markets. And lastly, Hotel Price Ads, which help secure bookings faster, have expanded to become available in a total of 56 markets!
Check out all our travel ad experiences in our latest Travel hub.
Responsive Search Ads on our mobile app
Responsive Search Ads (RSAs) make creating ads easier by eliminating the need to figure out which headlines and descriptions work well together. We’re excited to share that these are now supported in our mobile apps for Apple and Android. If you’ve never tried managing your Microsoft Advertising campaigns through our easy-to-use mobile app, we recommend giving it a try today!
See performance data for your expert and smart mode accounts and campaigns in the mobile app.
Upcoming open betas: Ad customizers for RSA and campaign-level conversion goals
Another upcoming enhancement related to RSA is ad customizers, which will be in open beta this quarter. With ad customizers, you’ll be able to combine the power of RSA with custom attributes for real-time, highly effective messaging. If you’re creating ads to highlight a sale or event promotion on a specific weekend, embedding discounts into ads based on the campaign, or focusing on particular features based on search queries, ad customizers are right for you.
The custom attributes available for ad customizers are:
- Text: Product names, product categories, descriptions
- Number: Inventory count, number of colors available
- Price: Product cost and sale discount
- Percent: Discount rate and interest rate
For ways you’ll be able to create ad customizers for RSAs, you’ll be able to either create custom attributes in Microsoft Advertising online or upload a customizer feed. We’re excited to open this beta up to advertisers soon!
One other key open beta that will also be released soon is campaign-level conversion goals, so stay tuned for news on this launch as well.
That’s it for April—we will have a number of other exciting announcements on this blog later this week and month, so be sure to stay tuned to the Microsoft Advertising blog all April for this and more! Otherwise, we’ll see you here on May 3 with a recap and another update of what’s to come. Take care, everyone!
Help us improve Microsoft Advertising
Your comments and feedback are integral to shape and improve our product. You can use the Microsoft Advertising Feedback portal, in-product feedback, Twitter, or Instagram. You can also email us at advertising-feedback@microsoft.com or contact Support.
