Similar audiences: Reach a wider qualified set of customers

Learn how to use similar audiences to get you ads in front of a wider, qualified set of customers.

Note

Not everyone has this feature yet. If you don't, don't worry—it's coming soon!

Connect to more qualified customers with similar audiences, generated automatically by Microsoft Advertising based on your existing remarketing lists. Similar audiences connect you with new customers who have similar behaviors and attributes to people you are already targeting.

How similar audiences work

Notes

You must have at least one remarketing list that has active associations with at least 300 users for Microsoft Advertising to generate a similar audience.
A similar audience needs to have at least 300 users on the search network or the Microsoft Audience Network before it can be associated with an active campaign or ad group.
A similar audience takes up to 24 hours to build and targeting for it won't take effect until that point.

With similar audiences, Microsoft Advertising does all the work for you. We analyze your existing remarketing lists and then comb searchers on the Microsoft Search Network and visitors to the Microsoft Audience Network for new potential customers who show similar attributes to the people on your lists. We base this analysis on a variety of signals, including search history, activity on Bing and other Microsoft properties, and user profile data.

If we've identified a similar audience that's large enough, then it's available for you to use right away.

Using similar audiences

How can I tell if I have similar audiences available to use? expando image

From the top menu, select Tools > Audiences.
Any similar audiences we've identified will appear in the table under Type, named "Similar to [name of remarketing list]".
Check the Audience status column for the similar audience. See What's my audience targeting status? for more information.

How do I target a similar audience? expando image

From the collapsible menu on the left, select All campaigns > Audiences.
Select Create association.
Select the ad group or campaign you want to associate with a similar audience.
Under Ad group targeting or Campaign targeting, select Similar audience from the drop-down list of audience options.
Choose your audience.
Select your Targeting setting:
- Bid only: Shows ads to people searching for your ad, with the option to make bid adjustments for the selected audience.
- Target and bid: Shows ads only to the selected audience, with the option to make bid adjustments.
Adjust the Default bid adjustment. By default, new targeting associations are set to 15%, however, the bid adjustment can range from -90% to +900%.
Select Save.

How do I manage existing similar audience associations? expando image

From the collapsible menu on the left, select All campaigns > Audiences.
Select the existing audience associations you want to edit from the table.
Select Edit to pause or exclude the audience or to change its bid adjustment.

Note

Similar audiences are just one of our audience targeting options.