Microsoft Shopping campaigns (Bing Ads) set up for e-commerce store on Shopify
When you promote e-commerce projects, Microsoft Shopping Ads (former Bing Ads) can become an effective way to attract leads in addition to Google Shopping ad campaigns.
Currently, Microsoft Shopping campaigns can be launched in the following countries: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Great Britain, India, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, USA.
In this article, we will show a step-by-step guide on how to set up Shopping campaigns on Microsoft Ads.
What is Microsoft Shopping campaign
Microsoft Shopping Ads have a similar format to Google Ads. The ad contains an image, ad copy, price, additional information about the seller (rating, etc).
These ads visually stand out from regular search ads and organic search results. So the users can make a decision about a purchase before they visit your website.
The visibility of the shopping campaigns on Bing:
Yahoo:
and AOL:
Get ready for Microsoft Shopping campaigns setup
Add your store to Microsoft Merchant Center
Select the Tools section on the main page in the upper right corner and select the Merchant Center
Select Create Store
Specify the store name, select confirmation via the UET tag or Webmaster Tools, select or enter the store URL and enable automatic verification of the SSL certificate (if your URL contains https)
You must have at least 50 events recorded by the tag or the tag itself must be launched on the site within the last 30 days to confirm a store via a UET tag. In this case, store confirmation can take up to 48 hours.
If the UET tag has just been created and has not accumulated enough data to create a store, you can confirm it with Bing Webmaster Tools http://www.bing.com/toolbox/webmaster
Log into Webmaster Tools with your existing Microsoft Ads account. In the Profile section, fill the information About Me, Contact Preference, and Alert Preference.
In My Sites section, enter the store URL and click Add. Add information about your website. Complete one of the proposed verification options and click Verify. The dashboard will be available once the URL will be verified.
Create a product feed in Shopify
To create a product feed in Shopify, install and configure the Feed For Google Shopping app in your Shopify account
The decision to choose this app was based on our experience with different applications. It is the most optimal in terms of cost and functionality ratio. In addition to Microsoft Ads, this application is also useful for Google Merchant and Facebook Shopping Ads.
You can use any other suitable app.
You can also import a product feed from the Google Merchant Center.
Upload your feed to the Microsoft Merchant Center
Go to the Feed For Google Shopping app, then to the Integrations section, and link the account in the app to your Microsoft Ads account
The feed will be uploaded to your Microsoft Merchant account and will be updated automatically:
If you are importing a feed from Google Merchant, go to the Import -> New import and follow the system instructions.
Setup Microsoft Shopping campaigns
Go to the Campaigns page, click Create campaign
Choose the goal for the campaign Sell products from your catalog
Choose the kind of ads you want to run – Search Ads or Audience Ads
Set a campaign name, budget, bid strategy, check advanced settings
Set a high priority for your shopping campaign, select your store, which products you will advertise (all or filtered)
Set the region, other necessary settings, and Save the campaign
If you have chosen to advertise all the products, you must divide them into product groups. I will enable flexible bid management for each group based on information about the margin or ROAS. As a result, the advertising budget can be managed efficiently.
To divide products into groups, select an ad group, go to the Product groups section and click next to All products button.
Select the parameter to divide the products. Then mark the categories you want and save
We divided products by Category, Product type. Other parameters are available, for example, Brand, manually created parameter (Custom label), and others.
Each category can be subdivided up to 7 times:
Set up different bid strategies for different products (based on their margin or ROAS). After collecting statistics, you can use the automatic Target ROAS strategy:
Conclusion
Microsoft Shopping campaigns setup sequence is similar to the Google Ads setup:
- Create a store in Microsoft Merchant Center
- Generate and upload a product feed
- Set up a shopping campaign
- Divide products into categories
- Switch the campaign to an automatic strategy
By setting up Microsoft Shopping ads you can gain more sales in addition to Google shopping campaign results.
I hope you found this article interesting and helpful. You can audit and optimize your ad campaigns yourself or order our service.
If you have questions or want to share your experience on the topic, write in the comments to the article, or use a special form to send a question on our website.