Impression-based remarketing
impression based remarketing / impression-based remarketing list / IBR / Microsoft Ads remarketing to people who saw my ad
Impression-based remarketing is a Microsoft Advertising audience made of people who saw your ads, whether or not they clicked. It lets you show a follow-up ad, or bid differently, to people your campaigns already reached, which only pays if the list grows big enough to serve and is attached to a campaign type that can use it.
Ordinary remarketing follows people who visited your website, which needs the UET tag (Microsoft's site tag) and a visit. This list needs neither. Microsoft says it targets users based on ad exposure, and its own example is a searcher who sees your ad on Bing, clicks a competitor's ad instead, and is added to your list anyway. That is the audience a site visitor list does not hold: people who looked at your offer and went elsewhere.
You build it under Tools, then Audiences, then Create, choosing Impression-based remarketing list and up to 20 campaigns or ad groups as the source. Three limits decide whether it does anything. Membership defaults to 7 days and stops at 30, so the list only ever holds the last month of viewers. Microsoft requires at least 1,000 people for the list to serve, and says the size takes a few days to update. And where you can use it depends on what built it.
That last rule is the one that catches people out. Microsoft says a list generated from at least one Audience campaign or ad group can be attached to any campaign type, but a list with no Audience campaign in it can only be attached to Audience campaigns. A list built from your Search campaign alone cannot boost your bids on that Search campaign. It can only follow those searchers onto Microsoft's Audience network, which Microsoft describes as placements such as MSN, Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Casual Games, plus partner sites.
Once attached, the list works in one of two modes, set per ad group or campaign for all its audiences. Target and bid shows ads only to people on your lists. Bid only shows ads to everyone your other targeting allows and adjusts the bid for list members, by anything from minus 90% to plus 900%. Microsoft applies no bid boost until the list reaches 1,000 users.
In practice
A business runs one Microsoft Search campaign that shows about 40 times a day in its area. Over the 30 day maximum that is about 1,200 impressions, and fewer people, because the same person can see the ad more than once. The list may never reach the 1,000 Microsoft needs to serve. Before building a follow-up Audience campaign around it, check the list size in Audiences after a week. If the number is stuck in the hundreds, widen the source to more campaigns or drop the idea; a longer window is not available.
Not the same as
- Website remarketing
- Built from UET tag visits to your site, not from ad views, and kept far longer: Microsoft's API allows 1 to 180 days of membership against 1 to 30 for impression-based lists.
- A view-through conversion
- That is a reporting credit for a conversion after an ad was seen. This is an audience you can show ads to or bid on.
Why it matters to you
It is one of the few ways to reach people who saw your price and your offer but chose someone else, without needing them on your website first. The cost of getting it wrong is quiet: a list that never reaches 1,000 serves nothing, and a list built from Search alone cannot be used on Search campaigns, where most local budgets usually sit, so a follow-up plan can run for weeks doing nothing.
What to ask or check
- 01Which campaigns built this list, and does it include an Audience campaign or only Search?
- 02How many people are on the list today, and has it ever passed 1,000?
- 03Is it set to target and bid or bid only, and what bid adjustment is on it?
What people get wrong
That a 390 day window applies to remarketing. Microsoft caps impression-based lists at 30 days and website remarketing lists at 180 days in its API. The 390 day limit belongs to customer lists, a different audience type, which Microsoft's API lets you keep for 1 to 390 days or set to never expire.
Red flags
- A Search campaign showing an impression-based list as attached with a bid boost, when the list was built only from Search campaigns.
- A follow-up campaign planned around a list that has sat under 1,000 people for weeks.
- Membership left at the 7 day default for a job customers take weeks to decide on.
Where you will see it
Under Tools, then Audiences, in Microsoft Advertising, and in the audience settings of a campaign or ad group it is attached to.