Microsoft Ads have just announced 5 new features: Here’s how they work and whether you should use them

After a year of testing Microsoft Ads has rolled out a recommendations tab for all users. After a survey of advertisers using the platform, the consensus was that auto-apply recommendations would increase the efficiency of the platform and valuable recommendations.

This rollout has come a mere month after Google’s own auto-apply recommendations were added to their platform.

Before you decide to opt-in for Microsoft's new auto-apply feature, here is everything you need to know about the update.

What are the new Microsoft Ads auto-apply recommendations?

For people looking to use Microsoft Ads auto-apply recommendations, they will be currently limited to five types of recommendations.

These are limited to the following; create expanded text ads, create responsive search ads, create multimedia ads, remove negative keyword conflicts and fix conversion goal setting issues.

It is also important to make sure that when you opt-in for recommendations, you opt out manually of any of the auto-apply recommendations you do not want to be applied to your account. 

Expanded Text Ads

Expanded text ads will be created by Microsoft ads if you do not have these ads running on one or more ad groups.

If you have opted in, you will receive a notification stating that an expanded text ad has been created.

These ads can be based on prior campaigns and current keywords performance. These will not start running until after they have passed a review process by Microsoft.

You can not control the length or the keywords used and only have the option to edit after the creation.

Furthermore, if you want to set up tracking on these expanded text ads you will have to do this manually. 

Responsive Search Ads

Responsive search ads on Microsoft Ads use a collection of headlines and descriptions to see which ones optimises your ads best.

When done manually you would create 8-10 headlines and four descriptions and submit them to Microsoft Advertising.

Once these are run, ineffective headlines and descriptions will be removed in favour of one that has been optimised well.

This can also work in conjunction with auto-bidding, with Microsoft Ads bidding for keywords working within your copy.

Utilising the auto-apply responsive search ads and auto-bidding, however, could be very expensive and may take the same amount of time for monitoring as creating the campaign yourself.

In their announcement, Microsoft Ads advises that you should still check these auto-applied features regularly which may mean multiple changes on your behalf to have a concise ad.

Furthermore, this combination with auto-bidding can remove clarity from your ads. If a keyword picked by the algorithm works well it may be prioritised, even if it is not related to your main keywords.

One of the main features of responsive ads is that the 8-10 headlines and four descriptions give the opportunity to optimise across multiple devices.

You can create short and long headlines that will be chosen based on the amount of text displayed on that browser.

However, when you auto-apply these headlines, you lose this chance for optimisation as the content is written for you. 

Multimedia Ads

Multimedia ads work in a similar fashion to responsive search ads where the Microsoft Ads algorithm will choose from images added to your account to fit the ad content.

You use the system of 8-10 headlines and four descriptions and add the final URL to your campaign. Once this is done you can edit the backgrounds and add effects. As to how this will work with auto-apply is an unknown quantity.

This is highlighted by the help page which only states that they will make “additional ads for ad groups that appear to be underperforming”.

It is, however, hard to see how this process could be automated given the importance of matching the images with your company's branding.

The creation of multiple ad groups may also drain your budget quicker if the ones deemed as underperforming are still being listed.

Remove Negative Keyword Conflicts

Negative keywords are when you highlight a keyword or phrase that you do not want your ad to appear for.

Mainly you will not want to advertise to customers who are unlikely to become quality conversions. Negative keyword conflicts are when a negative keyword is identical to part or all of an existing keyword.

When managed manually, account owners can run a keyword conflict report to see which negative keywords are impacting positive keywords.

When automised with auto-apply, these reports will run manually and remove these negative keywords. However, as acknowledged on the Microsoft Ads help page, negative keywords can have a purpose.

For example, you may sell bedding under the name ‘Manchester’ and would have to highlight a negative keyword for people searching for the English city of Manchester.

If this is automated you may lose this negative keyword and receive unnecessary traffic which could drain your ads budget.

Fix Conversion Goal Setting Issue

Conversion goal settings are a way to alter how you track each of your goals. These settings can include status, scope, count, etc. and can be edited individually so you can keep on top of your conversions.

There are a number of settings in this menu and as such, auto-apply may be appealing. This is especially significant considering how time-consuming changing each one for better conversion tracking can be.

However, the possible fallout of this may be that in fixing your conversion goal setting issues automatically, the solution may have a negative effect on your tracking.

This is because if your conversions have gone down or been affected, you may have to go through all these settings manually to fix this.

This is where the columns that you had surpassed due to automation, may come back to be a hindrance as you will not know what you need to change.

If you are looking for a solution to the time-consuming nature of Microsoft Ads tampering without the potential negative impacts of auto-apply, contact RankingCo today.

We are a smart digital marketing agency who specialise in everything digital. This includes Microsoft Ads who we are a partner.

If you are interested in learning more about our expertise and what we can do for your company, contact us on 1300 247 045 or email our friendly team via contact@rankingco.com.