Create your first Microsoft Ads campaign

On Microsoft Ads you can show ads to people at the companies of a TAL list, in the roles you sell to, including people who have never visited your site. IntentBid builds the campaign in your own Microsoft Advertising account and creates it paused.

You need a connected account first. See Connect your Microsoft Ads account.

Audience or Search?

At the top of New Microsoft Ads campaign, choose a type:

Why company targeting is on Audience only. In Microsoft's documentation, company, industry and job function targeting on search campaigns is bid only: it changes your bids for those people but doesn't narrow who sees the ad. On Audience campaigns, the same criteria can target, which means only people who match see the ad. So in IntentBid, Search ads use keywords, and Audience ads are where you aim at companies.

Start the campaign

There are three ways in:

• Microsoft Ads → + New campaign
• Microsoft · these companies → on a list in TAL Generator. The list is preselected.
• Create Microsoft campaign on an audience in Audiences → Active audiences

The steps are Who sees it, The ad, Budget & dates and Review.

Audience ads, step by step

1. Who sees it: under Companies from a TAL list or audience, pick a list. Each option shows its number of companies. Choose No list (roles and industries only) to target by role and industry alone.
2. Optional: add names under More companies (names, one per line).
3. Choose how to use the companies. Only people at these companies limits the ads to them. Everyone in the roles below, +40% bids for these companies reaches the whole role and bids higher for your list.
4. Under Roles (job functions), tick the functions you sell to, for example Finance or Operations. If the list was built for certain departments, those are ticked already.
5. Optional: add Industries (optional, one per line), for example Financial Services.
6. The ad: check the Campaign name, Landing page and Business name. Write 1–15 headlines (up to 30 characters each), a Long headline (up to 90 characters) and 1–5 descriptions (up to 90 characters each). Upload an Image: JPG or PNG, 1200×628 recommended, under 1 MB. Microsoft crops the other sizes from it.
7. Budget & dates: set the Daily budget and Max cost per click. The start and end dates are optional.
8. Review: when all checks pass, click Create paused campaign.

Microsoft allows up to 1,000 companies per campaign. Reports are by company, industry and job function, never by individual person.

Search ads, step by step

1. Click Search ads · Bing.
2. Who sees it: the Keywords (one per line) box is prefilled from your keyword research, with brand-name searches left out. They run as phrase match.
3. The ad: 3–15 headlines and 2–4 descriptions, plus the landing page.
4. Budget & dates, then Review and Create paused campaign.

Approve and launch

The campaign appears on All campaigns as Waiting for your approval. Click Approve and launch. After launch you can use Pause, Resume and Set budget in the table, or Save budget in the campaign workspace.

FAQ

My list has companies Microsoft doesn't recognise. What happens?

Microsoft matches the names it knows. Companies it can't match get no impressions, so check per-company impressions after a few days. See Microsoft Ads company reporting.

Why is my audience campaign not delivering?

The targeting may be too narrow, for example few companies, one job function and one industry. Add companies, tick more job functions, or switch to Everyone in the roles below, +40% bids for these companies.

Can I build the list first?

Yes. The TAL Generator finds the companies that match your ICP, and any list it makes can go straight into a Microsoft campaign.