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How to target customers

You can target your ads using a variety of variables, and then you can increase your bid amount to improve the chance that your ads are displayed.

You can target your ads using a variety of variables. You can also apply bid adjustments to increase your ad's exposure to potential customers that you have targeted.

  1. From the collapsible menu on the left, select Campaigns.
  2. Select the name of the campaign you want to change.
  3. To target by geographic location:
    • Select Locations.
    • Select locations you want to target or exclude. You can target and change your bid adjustment for:
      • All available countries/regions
      • Selected countries/regions and states/provinces
      • Selected counties within the United States
      • Selected cities, metro areas, and postal codes.* For a full list of country/region availability for ad language and location targeting, see How does ad language and location targeting affect who can see my ads?

        *Note:

        • Not all postal codes are supported for targeting exactly within their boundaries. If you target an unsupported postal code, it will be converted into a radius target (see below).
        • For Canadian and UK postal codes, only the first segment (for Canada, the first 3 characters; for UK, the first 2-to-4-character segment) is recognized. If you enter the second segment, you will only be able to use radius targeting.
        • The boundaries of some postal codes in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, and United Kingdom do not appear accurately on the map you see in Microsoft Advertising, but targeting within them will still function accurately.
      • A specified radius around a postal code, coordinates*, landmark, or area. (Note: You cannot exclude using radius targeting.)

        *Coordinates can be searched for in the format "[latitude], [longitude]" with the degrees in decimal form — for example, "44.590,-104.716".

      Important

      Microsoft Advertising will honor your location targeting settings and exclude locations you don't want to target. However, location targeting and exclusions may not always work because of factors beyond the control of Microsoft Advertising, such as a customer’s device settings or the inherent limits of geolocation via GPS, IP addresses, Wi-Fi networks, and Bluetooth.

    • Please note if you're using this feature in Smart Mode, it's only available in United States and Canada. For more information, see Get to know your Microsoft Advertising account modes.
    • Select who exactly should see your ads: People in your targeted locations, people searching for or viewing pages about your targeted locations, or both.
  4. To target by other variables, you can navigate through different pages from the collapsible menu on the left.
    1. To target by specific day or time of day, adjust the settings in Ad schedule. You can increase bid adjustments up to 900% and decrease them by as much as 90%. Note: When targeting by time, you can choose to base it on Your account's time zone or the Ad viewer's time zone.
    2. To adjust other campaign targets like Age, Gender, Device, Company, Industry, and Job Function, select Demographics.
    3. For Age and Gender, you can increase bid adjustments up to 900% and decrease them by as much as 90%. Keep in mind that when you apply bid adjustments to age group and gender, your ads will appear more frequently for the targeted demographic but will still also appear for non-targeted demographic.
    4. To target by company, industry, and/or job function, select Edit target under each target type. Search or browse for companies, industries, and/or job functions, and select Target for the appropriate ones. Select Done for each target type. Finally, set a bid adjustment for each target.
    5. To target by device type, select Device. You can target desktop (including laptop) computers, tablets, or smartphones. Bid adjustments for device types can be anywhere from -100% to +900%.
  5. Select Save.
Notes
  • Ads will not be shown to customers under 18 years of age if the ad content is determined to deal with mature subjects such as gambling, tobacco, weapons, violence, alcohol, or hate speech.
  • To opt out of showing ads to customers under 18 years of age regardless of your ads' content, just submit this form (when you click the link, you will need to sign in to Microsoft Advertising if you aren't currently signed in). You can opt back in using the same form.
  • Age information from the customer's Microsoft account will be used to determine the customer's age.

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