Running ads · Updated October 4, 2026
Is Microsoft Ads worth it for a local business?
Updated October 4, 2026
Usually worth it, once a local business's Google Ads are tracked, profitable and unable to buy more leads. Microsoft's search ads show on Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo and partner sites, a smaller audience that leans toward desktop searchers. Skip it if Google is not yet working, your area has little search volume, or nobody will check it weekly.
If Google Ads already pays and cannot buy more leads, test Microsoft Ads
Add Microsoft Advertising when your Google campaigns are counting leads, those leads cost less than a job is worth to you, and spending more on Google no longer buys many more of them. In that position Microsoft is a second source of the same kind of searcher. In any other position it is a distraction from fixing Google.
Read two columns in Google Ads to see whether you are capped. Search lost IS (budget) is, in Google's words, "the percentage of time that your ads weren't shown on the Search Network due to insufficient budget." A high figure means Google itself has more to sell you, so raise the Google budget before opening a second platform. Search impression share tells you how much of the available traffic you already win. When impression share is high and little is lost to budget, more Google money has little left to buy. That is the moment Microsoft makes sense. This is a rule of thumb, not Google's advice.
One exception. If your campaigns use Maximize conversions, Google says it does not recommend the Lost IS (budget) column with that strategy "because the column is incompatible with the bid strategy." Those campaigns are designed to spend the whole daily budget. Judge them on cost per lead instead: if raising the budget raised cost per lead without many more leads, you have found the ceiling.
- Add it when Google is profitable on tracked leads, you are near the ceiling described above, your customers often research the job on a computer rather than a phone, and Microsoft's own keyword planner shows searches in your area.
- Skip it when Google Ads has no conversion tracking or is not yet profitable, your whole ad budget is small enough that splitting it would starve Google, the keyword planner shows dashes for your main services, or nobody will check the account each week.
If your customers search from a desktop, the audience is bigger than its market share suggests
Expect Microsoft to reach a smaller audience that leans heavily toward desktop computers. StatCounter's US search engine market share figures for September 2026 put Bing at 9.89% across all devices, 18.8% on desktop and 2.15% on mobile. Google held 85.19% overall and 94.13% on mobile.
Bing's share of US desktop searches, September 2026
18.8%
Against 2.15% on mobile, per StatCounter. Yahoo and DuckDuckGo, which also carry Microsoft's search ads, add more.
Microsoft's search ads do not show on Bing alone. Microsoft says they "can appear with search results on sites like Microsoft Bing, AOL, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, Ecosia, and other partners." StatCounter puts Yahoo at 4.11% and DuckDuckGo at 1.94% of the US desktop market in the same month, so the reachable desktop audience is wider than Bing's figure alone.
What that means for a trade business, as a judgment from those numbers. A homeowner comparing roofers on a laptop is far more likely to be on Bing than someone searching "plumber near me" from a phone in a flooded kitchen. Urgent jobs searched on a phone lean on Google. Planned jobs researched on a computer give Microsoft more to work with.
Set it up without wasting the first month
If you import from Google, choose Customize and fix five things before launch
Import your Google campaigns, because it saves rebuilding keywords and ads by hand. But choose Customize, not Quick import, and check the results before any campaign goes live. Microsoft's own advice after import is blunt about targeting: "The settings used in one product will very likely not be appropriate for the other product."
The path is Import, then Import from Google Ads. After it runs, open Import, then Scheduled, to see the schedule and the log of what changed. Then check these:
- Scheduled imports that undo your changes. With an automatic schedule, Microsoft keeps re-importing "reactivating the campaigns and modifying the settings back to what they are on Google Ads (including the budget)." If you plan to give Microsoft its own budget or pause it separately, pause the schedule or turn off status, bid and budget updates under Bids and budgets.
- Town targets widened to a whole state. When Microsoft does not support a small city you target on Google, it says "we automatically expand the target so that it can be mapped to a nearby locale (such as a state, region, or a province)." The Import Summary and the error file flag each one. A plumber targeting two suburbs can end up paying for clicks statewide.
- Bid strategies swapped. If Microsoft has no conversion goal yet, a Google strategy that needs one is converted to one that does not, such as maximize clicks. Unsupported strategies on Search campaigns default to enhanced CPC. Check each campaign's bid strategy after import.
- Negative keywords changed. "Microsoft Advertising does not use broad match negative keywords." Imported broad negatives become phrase match, which blocks fewer searches. Read the search terms in the first two weeks and add what slips through.
- Bids and budgets raised. Microsoft raises bids and budgets below its minimums by default, and auto-generated Google assets are not imported at all. Check budgets and ad copy before launch.
If you want ads only beside search results, change the distribution and add exclusions
New campaigns start everywhere. Microsoft says that "by default, new campaigns are set up to show ads across the entire Microsoft Advertising Network," and that Search campaigns "may also be extended to audience placements" on MSN, Microsoft Edge, Outlook.com and publisher partners. For a local trade test, start narrow and widen only what proves itself.
- Go to Campaigns, then Ad groups, open the ad group, select Settings, and under Advanced settings find Ad distribution. It is an ad group setting, so check every ad group.
- Choose Microsoft sites and select traffic to leave out what Microsoft calls "Additional partner traffic (including Microsoft Bing and Yahoo search partners, such as Ask.com, Forbes, and others)." Microsoft recommends the whole network for reach and lower cost per click; for a small test, cleaner traffic is worth more than cheaper clicks.
- To keep a Search campaign off audience placements, add website exclusions. Microsoft's own advice: "To opt out of Audience ads, we recommend using website exclusions." For Search campaigns you can block audience traffic "including MSN, Microsoft Edge, and Outlook.com," though not Bing, AOL or Yahoo search. Lists live under Tools, then Content suitability, then Website control lists.
- After a week of spend, run the Website URL (publisher) report and exclude any site that sends clicks without leads. Up to 2,500 sites can be excluded.
Copilot has no off switch. Microsoft says eligible campaigns are "automatically opted in to serving in Copilot" and "Advertisers cannot opt out." It also says "negative keyword matching applies to Copilot," and that there are no separate Copilot metrics. Negative keywords are the control Microsoft names for it.
Importing can widen this further. If a Google campaign has Include search partners on, Microsoft maps it so that "Bing will target all search networks," syndicated partners included.
Install the UET tag and create a conversion goal before you turn on smart bidding
Put Microsoft's tag on every page and set up a goal for your form's thank-you page before you launch, or Microsoft will spend with no idea which clicks became leads. Microsoft is plain about it: conversion tracking "requires Universal Event Tracking (UET)."
Create the tag under Conversions, then UET tag, then Create UET tag, and add it to every page directly or through Google Tag Manager. Then go to Conversions, then Conversion goals, then Create, choose Business website and a Destination URL goal that matches the thank-you page. For leads, choose Unique conversions, which Microsoft describes as the choice when you care "whether or not a certain kind of lead was generated." Leave Include in "Conversions" ticked, because automated bidding only learns from goals included there.
Imported Google goals still need the tag. Microsoft can import some Google conversion goals, but that feature is "currently in pilot and not available to everyone," it only takes tag-based page-visit goals created in Google Ads, and even then "you'll need to set up a UET tag on your website."
Phone calls need their own tracking
If most of your leads phone, set up call tracking before judging Microsoft
Plan on separate call tracking for any business where most leads call. Microsoft's list of conversion goal types covers page visits, events, time on site, pages per visit, products, app installs, stores and offline uploads. It has no phone call type, so a Microsoft campaign that makes the phone ring can show zero conversions and get switched off for the wrong reason.
What Microsoft does offer. A call extension can use a Microsoft forwarding number, and Microsoft says "with a Microsoft Advertising forwarding number, you can track all calls from your ad," with reports on call duration and missed calls. The limits matter: call forwarding is only available in Australia, the UK and the US, and "an ad group within a campaign using call extensions must have at least 10 clicks and $10.00 in spend in the last 30 days. Once these criteria are met, contact Support to enable the feature." That number lives in the ad's call extension, so it covers people who call from the ad. It does not see someone who clicks through to your website and then calls the number on the page.
How to count the rest. Microsoft's route for calls is offline conversions. Its own example: a customer "clicks on it, but ends up calling you." You upload each one with "the time, date, Microsoft Click ID, and conversion goal name." That means something on your side has to catch the click ID when the visitor lands and tie it to the call. Microsoft names call tracking services that can send call conversions back to it. CallTrackingMetrics, one of them, shows ad visitors its own number through dynamic number insertion and says it "can only send Microsoft conversions for calls where an msclkid is captured from the landing page session URL." Uploads must arrive within 90 days of the click, and Microsoft recommends uploading daily so its bidding is not starved of data.
What turns on when you create an offline conversion goal
Microsoft says "auto-tagging of Microsoft Click ID is automatically turned on when you create your first offline conversion goal," and that you must wait 2 hours after creating the goal before uploading to it. Create the goal under Conversions, then Conversion goals, choose Offline conversions, and upload under Conversions, then Offline conversions, then Uploads.
If you cannot capture the click ID, you can still compare Microsoft calls by tracking number in your call tracking reports. Microsoft's bidding will not learn from them, so keep it on a strategy that does not depend on conversions until uploads are running.
Run it as a test with a stop rule
Check search volume in your area before you spend anything
Open Microsoft's keyword planner and look up your main services in your service area. If the numbers are tiny or missing, stop here: no setting will create searches that do not exist.
- In Microsoft Advertising, go to Tools, then Keyword planner, then Get search volume data and trends.
- Enter the five to ten services that bring you the most work, the way customers type them.
- Under targeting, set your actual service area, then click Get search volume.
- Read Average monthly searches and Suggested bid for each. Microsoft averages the searches over 12 months by default and shows a dash "if we don't have enough data for this keyword."
Microsoft calls the suggested bid "only an estimate and your actual CPC may vary." Use it to sanity check the test budget below, not as a price.
Fix a budget and a cost per lead limit before the first click
Set the test budget, the length and the stop rule in writing before launch. Microsoft converts a daily budget into a monthly limit of "daily budget x 30.4," and a day can run over, though Microsoft "usually keeps overspend to less than 100% above your daily limit." Plan on the monthly figure.
Start from Google's numbers. Your cost per lead on Google is the benchmark. Allow Microsoft somewhat more during a test, because it is starting with no history, and stop it if it cannot get near that figure.
For example
A roofing company pays $80 per lead on Google and books one job in three, so each Google job costs $240 in ads. It sets Microsoft at $20 a day, about $608 a month, for 60 days, a test of about $1,216. The limit is $120 per lead, 1.5 times Google. Day 14: read search terms and the publisher report, add negatives and exclusions. Day 30: about $608 spent. Fewer than 3 leads means over $200 per lead, so it pauses. Day 60: about $1,216 spent. Keep it only with at least 11 tracked leads, calls included, which is about $110 each, and booked jobs at a cost near Google's. Anything short of that is paused.
If the budget will not spend, treat that as the answer
If the campaign spends well under its budget week after week with sensible bids, the searches are not there. Do not widen to the whole network or the whole state to make it spend. That is the low-volume case from the keyword planner, now confirmed with real data.
Read share of voice before raising bids. Microsoft's share of voice report shows impression share and how much was lost to budget and to rank. If you are already showing for most of the searches and leads are still scarce, a higher bid buys the same few searchers at a higher price.
Judge it on booked jobs, and pause it properly when it stops paying
Compare cost per booked job on Microsoft with Google, not clicks or cost per click. Cheaper clicks that do not turn into jobs are not a saving.
When you pause, check the import schedule. A paused Microsoft campaign can come back on its own. Microsoft warns that automated imports keep "reactivating the campaigns and modifying the settings back to what they are on Google Ads (including the budget)." Pause or delete the schedule under Import, then Scheduled, and check both the account and manager account levels, where Microsoft says schedules can also be set.