Get to know your Microsoft Advertising account modes

Compare Smart mode and Expert mode.

Your Microsoft Advertising experience will slightly differ depending on the mode that you're in. Each mode represents how much time you're willing and able to devote to advertising, as well as goals you have and features you prioritize. Get familiar with the different modes below, as well as how to switch them.

Note

Please note that the mode you're in upon signing up for Microsoft Advertising may vary depending on your location.

Before you start, be sure to identify whether you're in Smart mode or Expert mode. Compare Modes

Smart mode

Note

Smart mode is only available in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Smart mode is a streamlined, simple experience that lets Microsoft Advertising's AI take care of most of the nuts and bolts of ad campaign management. It's a great way for small businesses and novice advertisers to start off advertising on the Microsoft Search Network. (Smart mode can also include Multi-platform in some markets. Learn more about Multi-platform.)

Expert mode

Expert mode is the full-featured Microsoft Advertising experience. It gives you more control over campaign management, lets you add more content to your ads, and provides more performance reporting and tracking. Expert mode is perfect for advanced marketers and advertisers who want to fine-tune every aspect of their campaign.

Comparing Smart mode and Expert mode

	Smart mode	Expert mode
Content you can have in your ads	Phone number, text	Images, maps, phone number, prices, reviews, and text
Ad campaign types you can use	Advertisers using Smart mode with Multi-platform can create search campaigns for Bing (required) and Google (optional), and social campaigns for Facebook and Instagram (both optional).	Audience, search, and shopping campaigns
What determines how much you pay for each click	Microsoft Advertising's optimization determines your bid amount.	You can set bids manually or choose from several automated bid strategies.
How you can target your ads	By age, customer location, gender, and keyword themes	Age, customer location, day of the week or time of day, device type, gender, LinkedIn profile information, and past interaction with your website (remarketing)
What campaign performance metrics are available	Clicks, customer action tracking (conversions), device type, impressions, phone calls, search phrases, and spend	Dozens of additional metrics, and the ability to run reports (automatically, if you choose) on any combination of them.
How you create a campaign	Specify the campaign basics (ads, budget goals, keyword themes, targeted locations, website) with suggestions from Microsoft Advertising based on your business website. You can also import campaign data from Google Ads.	Specify all details of a new campaign or review all details of an imported campaign. You can also import campaign data from Facebook Ads and Google Ads.
Can use Microsoft Advertising Editor and other third-party tools	No	Yes

Switching modes

Your business can benefit from any of the campaign modes offered by Microsoft Advertising. However, if you desire a specific mode that best fits your advertising goals, here's how you can switch.

Switch from Smart mode to Expert mode

Important

Once you switch from Smart mode to Expert mode, you can't switch back. However, you can always edit your smart campaigns from Expert mode, just like you would any other campaign.

From the side menu, select Upgrade to Expert mode.
Select Switch to Expert mode when prompted to confirm that you're sure you want to switch to Expert mode.