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Ad format preference: Microsoft Audience Ads

Learn about native ads, a way to place custom-designed ads in high-quality web properties.

Important

Not everyone has this feature yet. If you don’t, don’t worry. It’s coming soon.

Text ads are now automatically eligible to be transformed into Microsoft Audience Ads. You can also designate specific text ads to have native ads as their ad format preference.

What are native ads?

A native ad is an ad whose subject matter and visual design are relevant to the page it is displayed on. More and more advertisers are turning to native ads for their proven ability to assist in brand building and to drive purchase intent.

Microsoft Audience Ads appear on select MSN web pages. All clicks on your native ads will take the user to the destination URL you specified when you created your ads.

Who will see my native ads?

Microsoft Audience Ads are unique because they’re targeted to each MSN visitor based on our understanding of his or her interests. We compare the visitor's search and browsing history to the website's content, previous site visits, and other factors to determine which native ads to serve. In addition, Microsoft Audience Ads conform to your search ads' existing targeting and negative-keyword settings.

Ad format preference

Designating an ad for native ad use allows you to optimize its messaging for native delivery. Here's how:

In the type list from the left panel, click Ads and extensions and then Text ads.
In the Manager pane, select the ad or ads that you want to designate for native ad use.
In the Edit the selected text ads pane, click the dropdown under Ad format preference and select Native.
Click Save.

When Native is selected for ad format preference, Microsoft Advertising will prefer the native ad format for this ad during ad selection. Selecting All will allow this ad to be displayed across the search network, content network (US only), and native network.

Note

At least one search ad is always required in a campaign. If there is only one ad in a campaign and its ad format preference is set to Native, then it will display for both native and search results.