About ad distribution

About ad distribution

Use ad distribution to select where you want your ads to show. You can choose to have your ads shown on the entire Microsoft Advertising Network or subsets of it.

Use ad distribution to select where you want your ads to show. You can choose to have your ads shown on the entire search network or subsets of it.

Ad distribution options

Within the search network, you have several options, depending on where you're advertising. You can choose to have your ads shown on the following:

  • Bing, AOL, and Yahoo owned and operated sites
  • Bing, AOL, and Yahoo syndicated search partner sites (these are sites that partner with us to use Bing and Yahoo search results -- see this article for more information)
  • Both

Ads on the search network may also be displayed in the Bing Smart Search results.

Note

The ad distribution options Bing, AOL, and Yahoo search (owned and operated) only and Bing, AOL, and Yahoo syndicated search partners only apply to advertising set up in the following locations: Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, United Kingdom, and United States (excluding US territories). All other locations will use All search networks even if the other two options are selected. When you run the Publisher Performance report, you'll see websites based on these ad distribution rules. To learn how ad language and location targeting affects who sees your ads, see How does ad language and location targeting affect who can see my ads?


How to set ad distribution

Note

We're redesigning Microsoft Advertising, so the steps to complete a task may be different based on the version you're using. Learn more about the redesign and which version you're using.

Although you set ad distribution when you create a new campaign, it is an ad-group level setting. Here's how to adjust your ad distribution settings:

  1. From the main menu on the left, click All campaigns.
  2. From the page menu, click Ad groups.
  3. In the table, click the name of the ad group you want to edit.
  4. From the page menu, click Settings.
  5. Under Advanced ad group settings, in the Other settings section, click Ad distribution.
  6. Select whether to show your ads on all parts of the search network, just Bing, AOL, and Yahoo owned and operated sites, or just Bing, AOL, and Yahoo syndicated search partner sites.
  7. Click Save.
  1. From the Ad Groups tab, click the name of your ad group.
  2. Click Settings.
  3. In the Set bids section, under Advanced ad group settings, click Ad distribution.
  4. Select whether to show your ads on all parts of the search network, just Bing, AOL, and Yahoo owned and operated sites, or just Bing, AOL, and Yahoo syndicated search partner sites.
  5. Click Save.
Note

To see how to exclude websites that aren't giving you the results you want, see How to prevent your ads from showing to certain people.

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