Getting started with Bing Shopping Ads is a straightforward process. By following these steps, you can create a campaign that’s optimized for success, even if you’re new to online advertising.
- Create a Microsoft Advertising Account
The first step is to set up an account on Microsoft Advertising:
- Visit ads.microsoft.com and sign up.
- If you already have a Microsoft account (e.g., Outlook or Hotmail), you can use that to speed up the process.
- Fill in your business information, such as your company name, currency, and time zone.
This account will be your hub for managing all ad campaigns and tracking performance.
- Set Up a Microsoft Merchant Center Account
To run Shopping Ads, you need a Merchant Center account to manage your product feed:
- In your Microsoft Advertising dashboard, navigate to “Tools” and select “Merchant Center.”
- Create a store by providing your business details, website URL, and contact information.
- Verify your website ownership by adding a meta tag to your site or using the UET (Universal Event Tracking)tag.
Once your store is verified, you’re ready to upload your product feed.
- Create and Upload a Product Feed
Your product feed is the backbone of your Shopping Ads campaign. It contains all the necessary details about your products, such as titles, descriptions, prices, and images. Here’s how to create it:
- For WooCommerce Users: Use the CTX Feed plugin to generate product feeds for Bing Shopping.
- For Shopify Users: Use apps like “ShoppingFeeder” or “AdNabu” to streamline the process.
- Upload the product feed file to your Merchant Center account and set up an update schedule to keep data current.
- Set Up Conversion Tracking
Tracking conversions is essential for measuring the success of your campaigns and it will steer the ad spend to the better performing products. Microsoft Advertising uses a Universal Event Tracking (UET) tag for this purpose:
- Go to the “Tools” menu in your Microsoft Advertising dashboard and select “UET Tags.”
- Select your preferred tracking tags We recommend the following:
- Dynamic remarketing tagging
- Purchase action conversion tracking
- Add to card (Lead) conversion tracking
- Begin checkout (Lead) conversion tracking
These tags allow you to track actions like purchases, add-to-carts, and page visits, giving you valuable insights into campaign performance.
- Launch Your First Bing Shopping Campaign
With your account and product feed ready, it’s time to create your campaign:
- Go to the “Campaigns” tab in Microsoft Advertising and click “Create Campaign.”
- Select the “Sell products from your catalog” option.
- Choose between Standard Shopping Campaigns (manual control) or Smart Shopping Campaigns (automated targeting and bidding).
- Set a daily budget, target ROAS, and ad schedule.
- Optimize Your Campaign Settings
- Device Targeting: Focus on devices most relevant to your audience (e.g., desktops for professional products, mobile for quick purchases).
- Ad Distribution: Limit ads to “Bing, Outlook, and Yahoo search networks” for better-quality traffic.
Bidding Strategy: Start with Maximize Clicks to drive traffic, then switch to Target ROAS once you gather performance data.