Microsoft Advertising has released several updates and new features for October, aimed at enhancing advertisers' ability to reach customers and optimize their campaigns, especially during the peak holiday season.

Performance Max Updates

Search Term Insights Reports:

• Now available for all advertisers, these reports provide valuable insights into user search behavior, helping optimize ad content and strategy.
• Performance Max campaigns show significant boosts in impressions and conversion rates, especially when integrated with Copilot chat.

Brand Exclusions and URL Rules:

• A pilot for brand exclusions allows advertisers to exclude specific branded search queries.
• URL rules at the asset group level will be available mid-October, along with personalized recommendations for upgrading DSA campaigns to Performance Max.

Future Enhancements:

• Upcoming support for video assets and new customer acquisition goal settings.

Display Ads Enhancements

New Bidding Strategies:

• Manual CPM, Enhanced CPC, Maximize Conversions, and Target CPA are now available.
• These strategies allow for better optimization and tracking of conversions directly within the Microsoft Advertising Platform.

Expanded Targeting Options:

• In-market audiences, Dynamic remarketing, Custom audiences, Combined lists, LinkedIn Profile targeting, Predictive targeting, and Impression-based remarketing (in pilot).

IAS Verification:

• Advertisers can now use IAS verification for viewability, invalid traffic, and brand safety across native, display, and video ads.

Automated Bidding Strategies

New Recommendations:

• Two new actionable diagnoses and one-click recommendations are available for automated bidding strategies, helping identify performance issues related to budget or bidding targets.

Native Ads in Microsoft Invest

AI-Powered Asset Generation:

• Advertisers can use AI to generate image and content recommendations for native ads by inputting a specific landing page.

Microsoft Owned and Operated Packages

Inventory Library:

• New packages are available, offering more display, video, and native placements across Microsoft properties like MSN, Microsoft Start, Microsoft Outlook, and Microsoft Casual Games.

These updates aim to provide advertisers with more tools and insights to optimize their campaigns and reach a broader audience effectively.