Microsoft® Advertising campaign settings

[Campaign Creation screen]

Campaign Type: (Available during campaign creation only) Where to place ads, and which ad types
the campaign may contain:

• Search: Shows text ads on the search network.

• Shopping Network: Shows product ads — for your products in your Microsoft® Merchant Center product catalog — on the shopping network.

• Audience: Shows native/display ads on the Microsoft® Audience Network. You can either a) automatically generate feed-based ads by linking the campaign to a merchant center store in the Shopping Settings section or b) create responsive ads with text assets and uploaded images. Both options require you to create ad groups with user targeting.

• Shopping Campaigns for Brands: (Beta feature) Promotes your products through linked retailers across the search and audience networks. You can create child ad groups and product groups (apps to promote), and optional product ads for the campaign; Microsoft® Advertising automatically creates ads for the product groups.

• Microsoft® Store Ads Campaign: (Beta feature) Promotes your apps and games that are available in the Microsoft® Store. You can create child ad groups, product groups, and optional product ads for the campaign; Microsoft® Advertising automatically creates ads for the product groups.

• Audience Video: (Beta feature) Shows standard video ads on the audience network.

• Audience Video: (Beta feature) Shows connected TV (CTV) video ads on the audience network.

• Performance Max: (Beta feature) Shows multiple ad types across all networks. Assign asset groups separately within the Microsoft® Advertising ad editor.

Campaign Details

Campaign Name: A campaign name that is unique within the account. The maximum length is 128 characters.

Status: The display status of the campaign: Active or Paused. The default for new ad campaigns is Active.

Start date: The first date on which bids may be placed, as long as the campaign or ad group contains approved ads. The default for new campaigns and ad groups is the current day. To change the date for a campaign or ad group that hasn’t started, enter a date in the format MM/DD/YYYY or click and select a date.

Once a campaign or ad group has started, you can pause it but can’t change the start date.

End date: The last date on which bids may be placed. The default is No End Date. To place bids until a specified date, enter a date in the format MM/DD/YYYY or click and select a date.

Budget Options

Budget: The budget, which is the amount you want to spend daily, on average.

If you assign this campaign to a portfolio for which campaign budget limits are automatically adjusted, then — depending on search conditions — you may actually spend more or less than the specified budget in any given period.

Delivery Method: (Most campaign types with daily budgets) How quickly to show ads for the campaign
each day:

• Distributed: To spread your ad impressions evenly throughout the day.

• Accelerated: To display your ads as quickly as possible until your budget is reached. As a result, your ads might not appear later in the day. Note: For Google Ads search and shopping campaigns, this option was deprecated in October 2019.

Bid strategy: The bid strategy for the campaign:

• CPV (Audience CTV video campaigns only) Uses the cost-per-view (CPV) model.

• Enhanced CPC: (Campaigns on the audience, search, and shopping networks) Uses the ad network’s enhanced cost-per-click (eCPC) model, which allows the ad network to automatically change the cost-per-click (CPC) bid for each auction in an attempt to maximize conversions, using conversions specified within the ad network (not in Search, Social, & Commerce), while trying to keep your average CPC below your maximum CPC.

  When you add a campaign with eCPC to an optimized Search, Social, & Commerce portfolio, Search, Social, & Commerce optimizes the base bids and — when the “Auto adjust campaign budget limits” option is enabled — the campaign budget. The ad network optimizes all bid adjustments and may change the Search, Social, & Commerce-generated bids at the time of the user query based on proprietary data and insights. Caution: Use eCPC campaigns in portfolios only when the total conversions tracked on the ad network align with the portfolio objective.

• Manual CPC: (Shopping campaigns for brands; Microsoft Store Ads campaigns; deprecated by Microsoft® Advertising in 2021 for other campaign types) Uses the cost-per-click (CPC) model. For some ad types, you can optionally allow the ad network to change bids for the campaign:

  • Enable Enhanced CPC (disabled by default): This is the same as using the “Enhanced CPC” option.

• Manual CPA: (Microsoft Store Ads campaigns) Uses the cost per acquisition (CPA) model.

• Manual CPM (Audience campaigns and audience video campaigns only) Uses the cost-per-thousand-impressions (CPM) model, for which you specify what you want to spend per 1,000 viewed impressions. Campaigns with this bid strategy aren’t optimized when they’re included in portfolios.

• Maximize Clicks: (Search and shopping campaigns) The ad network — not Search, Social, & Commerce — optimizes bids to maximize clicks. Optionally, enter a Max CPC (cost per click) to ensure that the ad network doesn’t pay more than a specific amount for each click. Caution: When you add a campaign with this strategy to a portfolio, bids are driven by click weight, not by the portfolio objective.

• Maximize Conversion Value: (Search and shopping/smart shopping networks, performance max campaigns) The ad network — not Search, Social, & Commerce — optimizes bids to maximize conversion value. Optionally enter a Target Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) as a percent. Note: Use this option for campaigns in hybrid portfolios but not standard portfolios.

• Maximize Conversions: (Campaigns on the search network , performance max campaigns) The ad network — not Search, Social, & Commerce — optimizes bids to maximize conversions. Optionally enter a Target CPC (cost per click). Note: Use this option for campaigns in hybrid portfolios but not standard portfolios.

• Target CPA: (Campaigns on the search network) The ad network — not Search, Social, & Commerce — optimizes bids based on an optional Target CPA (cost per acquisition), which is the 30-day average amount you want to pay for an acquisition (conversion). Note: Use this option for campaigns in hybrid portfolios (but not standard portfolios) with any spend strategy except Weekly or Google Target CPA.

  Average position and CPC bid data aren’t available for campaigns with this bid strategy.

• Target Impression Share: (Campaigns on the search network) The ad network — not Search, Social, & Commerce — optimizes bids to achieve a target impression share and ad position. Optionally, enter a Target Impression Share as a percent, the Target Ad Position, and a Max CPC (cost per click). Note: This option isn’t supported in hybrid portfolios.

• Target Return on Ad Spend: (Campaigns on the search and shopping networks) The ad network — not Search, Social, & Commerce — optimizes bids based on your Target ROAS (return on ad spend), specified as a percentage. Optionally, enter a Max CPC (cost per click) to ensure that the ad network doesn’t pay more than a specific amount for each click. Note: Use this option for campaigns in hybrid portfolios (but not standard portfolios) with any spend strategy except Weekly or Google Target ROAS.

  Average position and CPC bid data aren’t available for campaigns with this bid strategy.

Shopping Settings

Sales Country: (Shopping campaigns only; read-only for existing campaigns) The country in which
the campaign’s products are sold. Because products are associated with target countries, this setting determines which products are advertised in the campaign.

Link with Microsoft® Merchant Center: (Audience campaigns only; optional) Links the campaign with a specific merchant center store for automated feed-based ads rather than responsive ads. When you select this option, specify the Merchant ID and Products. You need to create ad groups for the campaign, but you don’t need to create ads.

Once you link the campaign to a store and save the settings, you can’t change this option.

Campaign Priority: (Shopping campaigns only; read-only for existing campaigns) The priority with which the campaign is used when multiple campaigns advertise
the same product: Low (the default for new campaigns), Medium, or High.

When the same product is included in more than one campaign, the ad network uses the campaign priority first to determine which campaign (and associated bid) is eligible
for the ad auction. When all of the campaigns have the same priority, the campaign with the highest bid is eligible.

Merchant ID: (Shopping campaigns and audience campaigns linked to a merchant feed only) The customer ID of the merchant account whose products are used for the campaign.

For Microsoft Advertising audience campaigns linked to a merchant center store, select the Merchant ID from the list of all stores linked to the search account. Once you link the campaign to a store and save the settings, you can’t change this option.

Products: (Audience campaigns linked to a merchant center store only) The products to advertise. By default, All products is selected. To advertise only products with specific attributes, select Filter products and specify up to seven product dimension-and-attribute combinations on which to filter your products. All specified values must be applicable for ads to appear for the product. For example, to show ads for Acme pet supplies, you might create the filters Custom Label 1=animals, Category=pet supplies, and Brand=Acme Pet Supplies.

Inventory Filter: (Shopping campaigns only; optional) Products with specific attributes to advertise for the campaign. If you don’t specify inventory filters, then the ad network may advertise any product in your store.

You can enter up to seven product dimension-and-attribute combinations on which to filter your products, using the format dimension=attribute. Separate multiple filters
with a “>>” delimiter. For a list of available product dimensions, see “Shopping campaign product filters.”

The following example shows ads for Acme pet supplies:

CategoryL1=animals>>CategoryL2=pet supplies>>Brand=Acme Pet Supplies

Campaign Targeting

Location Targets: Specific user geographical locations to include or exclude as targets. By default, all locations are targeted. You can include and exclude users in any combination of locations. Exclusions always override inclusions.

• To target all locations, don’t select any locations.

• To include a location and its child locations, click the circle next to it once so that a blue checkmark () appears. You can optionally increase or decrease bids by a specified percentage for each location targeted.

• To exclude a location, click the circle next to it twice so that a red checkmark () appears.

• To expand a location into its subcomponents (such as the states, prefectures, regions, or cities), click the location name.

• To search for a location, enter or paste at least the first three characters of the location in the input field.

Devices: (Optional; not available for Google Ads performance max campaigns) Configure bid adjustments for different device types, as percentages of the keyword-level bid. For example, if the keyword-level bid is 1 USD and the bid adjustment for smartphones is 50%, then the smartphone bid is 1.50 USD. By default, no values are entered (bid adjustment=0), and all devices are bid at the keyword-level bid.

For Google Ads, valid percentages can include -100 for smartphones and tablets (to not bid for the device type), and from -90 to 900 for all device types.

For Microsoft Advertising, valid percentages can include:

• Smartphones and tablets: -100 (to not bid for the device type) and from -90 to 900
• Desktop: from 0 to 900

URL Options

Tracking Template: (Optional) The tracking template or tracking URL, which specifies all off-landing domain redirects and tracking parameters and also embeds the final/landing page URL in a parameter. Example: {lpurl}?source={network}&id=5 or http://www.trackingservice.example.com/?url={lpurl}?source={network}&id=5 to include a redirect.

For Adobe Advertising conversion tracking, which is applied when the campaign settings include “EF Redirect” and “Auto Upload,” Search, Social, & Commerce automatically prefixes its own redirect and tracking code when you save the record.

• For supported parameters to embed the final URL, see the Microsoft Advertising documentation on parameters to indicate the final URL.

• You can optionally include URL parameters and any custom parameters defined for the campaign, separated by ampersands (&), such as {lpurl}?matchtype={matchtype}&device={device}.

• You can optionally add third-party redirects and tracking.

Custom Parameters: (Optional; applicable to audience campaigns only for Microsoft Advertising) Name and value pairs for up to three custom parameters. The maximum length for names is 16 alphanumeric characters; the maximum length for values is 200 characters, including embedded parameters.

You can include your custom parameter names in the tracking templates for the entity and its child entities. When a user clicks a relevant ad, the ad network replaces the parameter name with the defined parameter value. For example, if you create a customer parameter {_color}=red and your tracking template includes http://tracker.example.com/?color={_color}&u={lpurl}, then “red” is inserted in the color parameter when a user clicks an ad.

Custom parameters at the ad group or (Microsoft Advertising only) ad level override campaign-level
custom parameters with the same name.

Landing Page Suffix: (Google Ads and Microsoft Advertising accounts only; optional) Any parameters to append to the end of final URLs to track information; include all parameters that your business must track. Example: param1=value1&param2=value2

Accounts that use Adobe Advertising conversion tracking must include the ad network’s click identifier (gclid for Google Ads or msclkid for Microsoft Advertising) in the suffix.

Accounts with an Adobe Analytics integration must use the s_kwcid parameter. If the account has a server-side s_kwcid implementation, then the parameter is added automatically when a user clicks an ad; otherwise, you must manually add it here. See the required suffix formats for Google Ads and required suffix formats for Microsoft Advertising.

Notes:

• This field isn’t updated by the Auto Upload tracking setting.

• Landing page suffixes at lower levels override the account-level suffix. For easier maintenance, use only the account-level suffix unless different tracking for individual account components is necessary. To configure a suffix at the ad group level or lower, use the ad network’s editor.

DSA Options

Website Domain: (Search network only; applicable to expanded dynamic search ads only) The root domain (such as example.com) or subdomain (such as shoes.example.com) of the website whose content the ad network will use to target your dynamic search ads.

Notes:

• Expanded dynamic search ads target website content, rather than keywords.

• Your domain must be indexed by the ad network’s organic search index to be targeted.

• If you don’t specify a domain, then you must create dynamic search targets, which target either all of your website pages or a subset of pages, for each ad group.

DSA Language: (Search network only; applicable to expanded dynamic search ads only) The language for the specified website domain.

If the domain contains pages in multiple languages and you want to target all of them, then create a separate campaign for each language.

Negative Keywords

Negative Keywords: (Optional) Any keywords that, when queried, don’t trigger an ad. Use the following syntax, without a minus sign (-):

• Negative broad match: keyword (not supported by Microsoft Advertising)
• Negative phrase match: "keyword"
• Negative exact match: [keyword]

Separate multiple values with commas, or enter them on separate lines. You can enter or paste up to 2000 negative keywords in one operation.

Negative Websites

Negative Websites: (Campaigns on the display/native network only; optional) Sites on the display network on which you don’t want your ads to be displayed. Enter a valid URL, such as www.example.com. To specify multiple strings, separate them with commas or enter them on separate lines.

For information about availability, see Microsoft® Advertising help to “Prevent ads from appearing on specific websites.”

Campaign Tracking

Override Account Tracking: (Optional) Allows you to set tracking parameters for this campaign. By default, this option is off, and the campaign uses the account-level tracking parameters.

Tracking Type: The method by which URLs are generated:

• EF Redirect (the default): For clients who want to use the Adobe Advertising conversion tracking service. This method generates unique click-tracking IDs and redirects users to the Adobe Advertising server for tracking purposes before sending them to the client’s landing page.

  This method has default tracking options that you optionally can customize, and you also can specify parameters to append to each URL.

• No EF Redirect: For clients who want to use only their own click-tracking codes. Search, Social, & Commerce doesn’t provide click-tracking IDs or redirect codes. For accounts with destination URLs, each destination URL is the same as the base URL.

  Notes:

  • Only agency account manager, Adobe account manager, and administrator users can change this value.
  • If you change the tracking method, you must regenerate tracking URLs for the account.
  • Campaign-level tracking options override account-level settings.

Redirect Type: (For EF Redirect only) The method of redirecting end users to the final URL or destination URL. The selected option is applicable to all ads, keywords, and placements in the account or campaign. The default account-level setting is inherited from the advertiser’s tracking settings, and the default campaign-level setting is inherited from the account settings.

• Standard: To just redirect the end user to the specified URL.

• Token: To redirect the end user to the URL and also record the Search, Social, & Commerce ID for the click (ef_id) as a query string parameter, which is used as a token. Choose this option if you will report offline transactions, want Search, Social, & Commerce to exchange data with Adobe Analytics, or want to track all conversions that occur within Apple Safari browsers.

Notes:

• If you switch from Standard to Token, or vice versa, then you must regenerate tracking URLs for the account.
• You can override the account-level setting at the campaign level.

Auto Upload: (For synchronized campaigns with EF Redirect only) Automatically uploads the following to the ad network the next time Search, Social, & Commerce synchronizes with it: (a) Search, Social, & Commerce tracking parameters for tracking templates and the same parameters appended to the final URLs or (b) new destination URLs embedded with Search, Social, & Commerce tracking code. For advertisers with an Adobe Advertising-Adobe Analytics integration and a server-side AMO ID (s_kwcid) configuration, the upload also includes AMO ID parameters for your Google Ads and Microsoft Advertising accounts. The default account-level setting is inherited from the advertiser’s tracking settings. You can override the account-level setting at the campaign level.

Note: Tracking URLs are updated daily only for entities that are out of sync (that is, new entities that were added and existing entities whose properties have changed). Therefore, if you change this setting from disabled to enabled for an existing advertiser/account/campaign, then tracking URLs aren’t updated for existing entities that are already in sync. To add tracking to the URLs of existing, in-sync entities, contact your Adobe Account Team and request a one-time, manual sync process. The automatic upload process will handle future changes.

Encode Base URL: (Accounts with destination URLs and the tracking type EF Redirect only) Whether the end user will see character encoding (such as %3D instead of =) in the URL within the browser address bar:

• On (the default): To show character encoding in URLs.

• Off: To show unencoded URLs.

Tracking Level: (For EF Redirect only; available at the account and campaign levels; not applicable to ad networks that are enabled for parallel tracking) The level at which clicks and revenue should be tracked by adding a redirect (when relevant) and append parameters to the relevant URLs:

• Keyword: To track data at only the keyword level.

• Ad: To track data at only the ad level.

  Note: Changing an existing campaign to this setting deletes any existing keyword tracking IDs. Also, if you want to perform multivariate testing by using multiple landing pages for an ad, then create a bulksheet file and edit it for the required components.

• Keyword and Ad: To track data at both the keyword and ad levels.

Notes:

• Only “Keyword” is available for Naver.
• Only “Ad” is available for Yandex.

Track Product Group: (For EF Redirect only) Not implemented

Append Parameters: (Optional) Any additional tracking parameters to append to the base URLs.. The advertiser-level append parameters are included by default at the account level and the campaign level, but you can override either.

You can use any static text string, including third-party tracking parameters, or any of the supported tracking parameters, which insert an appropriate data value in the base URL.

Separate multiple parameters with commas or ampersands (&). Nested brackets aren’t supported.

Notes:

• Changes to append parameters aren’t controlled by the Auto Upload option. If you change the append parameters for existing base URLs, then new URLs aren’t generated automatically. Add the new parameters by downloading a bulksheet file for the account or campaign, updating the Base URL/Final URL fields, and then uploading and posting the bulksheet.

• (Ad networks with parallel tracking) Avoid using macros, which aren’t substituted for clicks from sources that enable parallel tracking. If the advertiser must use macros, then the Adobe Account Team should work with Customer Support or the implementation team to add them.

• (Advertisers with an Adobe Advertising-Adobe Analytics integration) To include an AMO ID parameter to send Search, Social, & Commerce data to Analytics, see the ad network-specific formats. It’s not necessary to manually add the parameter for Google Ads and Microsoft Advertising accounts with a server-side AMO ID implementation.

Conversion Goals

Conversion Goal: Whether to Use account conversion goals for this campaign (the default) or Use campaign specific conversion goals. If you choose to specify conversion goals for the campaign, then select the goals from the list of all available goals. Note: Goals are synchronized daily, so goals created in the previous 24 hours may not be listed. To update the list, manually synchronize the ad network data.

If the campaign is part of a portfolio, then use the same conversion goals as the portfolio’s objective. Using different conversion goals may impact portfolio performance.