How do I create an audience campaign?

Learn how to create a campaign that will run ads natively on the Microsoft Audience Network.
Note

This feature is available in all Microsoft Advertising markets.

To create an audience campaign, follow the instructions below. If you want to create display ads or video ads, see About display ads and About video and connected TV (CTV) ads.

1. Create your campaign expando image

  1. From the collapsible menu on the left, select All campaigns > Campaigns > Create.

    If you're using the new Microsoft Advertising navigation, from the navigation menu on the left, select Create.

  2. Choose Build brand awareness, Drive conversions, or Generate leads as your campaign goal. If you don't have a goal in mind, you can select Skip.
  3. Select Audience as your campaign type.
  4. The campaign creation wizard will then walk you through the process.
2. Add your creative assets expando image

In this step, you give us the imagery, text, and URLs to use in the ads in your campaign. As you add information, we will update the Ad preview area on the right side of the page to give you an idea of what your ad could look like. Use the arrows on either side of the Ad preview area to scroll through the different possible placements in properties such as Microsoft Start and Outlook. As you go through this set up, you can also leverage Microsoft AI for ad copy recommendations to help improve your campaign's performance.

Note

The ad previews are examples of how your native ads could appear. Depending on placement, the actual ad shown may appear differently—for example, some text may be shortened.

  1. Enter your Final URL. This is your landing page URL—in other words, the URL of the page that displays after a customer selects your ad.
  2. Below Images, add the images you want to appear in your ad.
    1. Choose whether to use an image from your Website images, pick one of our available Stock images, or upload an image. Note: You cannot upload more than 5,000 images to a Microsoft Advertising account.
    2. When you've found the right image, select it.
    3. You'll see how we have cropped the image for the possible aspect ratios for native ads. If you want to change the imagery for any specific aspect ratio, select its pencil icon and select either Re-crop or Replace.
  3. Enter your Short headlines (up to 15), Long headlines (up to five), and Descriptions (up to five). These are required for display flexibility. Short headlines must be 30 characters or fewer; long headlines and descriptions must be 90 characters or fewer. Depending on your native ad's placement, the Description will appear below or adjacent to your ad's long or short headline.
  4. Enter your Business name. Depending on your native ad's placement, your business name may appear in your native ad.
  5. (Optional) Under advanced settings, enter your Mobile URL. This is the webpage where people go to after selecting your ad on a mobile device.
  6. (Optional) Select Advanced URL options to include tracking templates or URL parameters in your final URL.
  7. (Optional) Set up your Impression tracking URLs.
  8. Select Save & go to next step.
3. Choose your audience and targeting expando image

Create an ad group for this campaign and choose the audiences you want the ads in the ad group to target.

You can choose any combination of the possible target criteria:

Location expando image
Select locations you want to target or exclude. You can target and change your bid adjustment for:
  • United States and Canada
  • All available countries/regions
  • Selected countries/regions and states/provinces
  • Selected counties within the United States
  • Selected cities, metro areas, and postal codes* within Australia, Canada, France, Germany, United Kingdom, United States

    *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".

Age expando image
Choose one or more age ranges of people you want to see your ads.
Gender expando image
Choose the gender of the people you want to see your ads.
Audience expando image

With audience targeting, you specify who can see your ads using remarketing lists or audiences such as in-market audiences. You can also exclude audiences if you don't want them to see your ads. Learn more about your options for audiences

To target an audience:

  1. Under Ad group targeting select Add targets and then select which type of audience you want to target.
  2. Search or browse for an existing audience, and then select it in the left pane to move it into the Selected pane on the right.
  3. If you want to create a new audience, select the link at the bottom of the area. For example, Create remarketing list.

To exclude an audience, follow the same process under Ad group exclusions.

Company expando image
With company targeting, you can target your ads to be more (or less) likely to appear for people who most recently worked at specific companies (according to their LinkedIn profiles).

  1. Search for a company by name.
  2. You will see relevant companies, along with the approximate number of employees each company has (according to LinkedIn).
  3. For the appropriate company, select Target or Exclude.
Note

You cannot target more than 1,000 companies in a single ad group.

Industry expando image
With industry targeting, you can target your ads to be more (or less) likely to appear for people who most recently worked in specific industries (according to their LinkedIn profiles).

  1. Search or browse for a type of industry.
  2. For the appropriate industry, select Target or Exclude.
Job function expando image
With job function targeting, you can target your ads to be more (or less) likely to appear for people who most recently had specific kinds of jobs (according to their LinkedIn profiles).

  1. Search or browse for a type of job function.
  2. For the appropriate job function, select Target or Exclude.
Predictive targeting expando image
After you set your targeting preferences, you can choose to enable to disable Predictive targeting. Predictive targeting helps you easily find new audiences that you may not have considered targeting, who are more likely to convert. For more information, see Predictive targeting.

Once you submit your criteria, select Save & go to next step.

Important
  • As you add and edit targets, pay attention to the Possible monthly impressions meter on the right side of the page. This will estimate how many people would be eligible to see your ads based on your targeting criteria.
  • If your targeting becomes too narrow, you won't be able to save your campaign.
4. Set up your budgets and bids expando image
  1. Enter your Campaign name. Note: A campaign name cannot contain scripts, HTML, or other markup language.
  2. Choose your Start date and End date for when you want your campaign to run.
  3. Under Conversions, choose which conversions are included in the Conversion columns for this campaign and used for optimizing your bid strategy.
  4. Under Budget and bid strategy, choose your budget type and amount. Enter the maximum amount of money you want to spend per day. Learn more about your budget options
  5. Choose your Bid strategy.
  6. Set a Default bid as a starting point for this campaign's bids.
  7. (Optional) Turn on the Frequency limit toggle to limit how often a potential customer sees your ad. You can choose to limit how many times a customer sees your ad per hour, day, and week.

    Note: You can view reports for your frequency limit. To create a report: From the top menu, select Reports > Default reports > Performance > Campaign, Ad group, or Ad. Then, select the modify columns icon in the top right. Below Performance Statistics, add the columns Unique reach, Avg. impression frequency per user, and Avg. impression frequency per user (7 days) for the previous seven days.

    If you're using the new Microsoft Advertising navigation, from the navigation menu on the left, select

    Reporting > Default reports > Performance > Campaign, Ad group, or Ad. Then, select the modify columns icon in the top right. Below Performance Statistics, add the columns Unique reach, Avg. impression frequency per user, and Avg. impression frequency per user (7 days) for the previous seven days.
  8. (Optional) Select Ad schedule if you want to show your ads only on certain days or certain times of day.
  9. (Optional) Select Bid adjustment and tell Microsoft Advertising how much to increase or decrease your default bid on each of the target criteria you set in the ad group creation process.
  10. Select Save & go to the next step.
  11. Review the Summary page to ensure that the information is correct.
  12. When you're finished, select Save & go live or Save & don't go live.
Notes
  • After you select Save & go live, your ads will begin appearing on the shortly, unless there is an error with your account.
  • To further optimize your audience campaign, use the Audience Network Planner to experiment with different audiences and combinations of audiences.
Note

Learn more about shopping audience campaigns.

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