Dynamic Keyword Insertion Using The {KeyWord} Parameter
Much like Google Ads, Microsoft Advertising supports the ability to insert the keywords that users have searched for dynamically by using its {KeyWord} parameter in ad Headlines and Descriptions. The parameter will format the inserted keyword based on the format of the parameter itself, as explained below. How To Use The {KeyWord} Parameter You can ...
Expanded Dynamic Search Ads For Microsoft Advertising
Expanded text ads are designed to maximize your brand's presence whenever your ad is served to a user. Longer headlines and description lines allow you to show a user more information about your business before they even click your ad. Now, the Expanded Text Ad format has also rolled out to Microsoft Advertising's Expanded Dynamic Search Ads (eDSA)...
Historical Quality Score
Quality Score (QS) is an estimate of how relevant your ads, keywords, and landing page are to a person seeing your ad. Having a high QS means that the publisher thinks your ad, keyword, and landing page are all relevant and useful to someone looking at your ad. Having a low QS, on the other hand, means that your ads, keywords, and landing page proba...
URL By Match Type (Microsoft)
URL by Match Type is a functionality in use by Microsoft Advertising. Previously, Microsoft Advertising would only allow a keyword to have different bids for each match type and one URL. Now, similar to Google Ads, Microsoft Ads is enabling a keyword to have only one match type and bid. This means: Unique URLs by match type are now possible for AdCe...
Local Inventory Ads For Microsoft
Local Inventory Ads are an advertising format for your Microsoft Shopping Campaigns which allows you to promote your products and services to local shoppers on Microsoft. Featuring an “in-store” label, Local Inventory Ads take users to an advertiser’s website or a Microsoft-hosted storefront page that includes product and store information. When a u...
Microsoft Advertising Enhanced Campaigns
In September 2014, Microsoft Ads combined tablet and PC/laptop campaigns, while smartphone campaigns remained separate. As of March 23rd 2015, Microsoft Ads began combining device targets, essentially removing the option to target mobile vs. desktop/tablet. Marin Support For Microsoft Advertising Enhanced Campaigns The Marin platform will continue t...
Microsoft Advertising Expanded Text Ads
An Expanded Text Ad (ETA) is an expanded ad format with two title fields and support for upgraded URLs. They provide more content than Standard Text Ads (STAs), giving you more space to encourage clicks and conversions. Well-crafted ETAs generally see better click through rates than standard text ads. At-A-Glance Three headlines Two descriptions M...
Microsoft Advertising Upgraded URLs: Frequently Asked Questions
This article will provide answers to some of the most common questions we receive about the 2016 migration to Microsoft Advertising Upgraded URLs. Frequently Asked Questions What Are Upgraded URLs? Upgraded URLs allow advertisers to separate tracking parameters on URLs from a single string into smaller building blocks. These URL components show wha...
Microsoft Advertising Work Vs. Personal Authentication
Microsoft Work Accounts For Microsoft paid business users, Microsoft work accounts allow company IT departments better security and control over users' use of third-party tools. For details, see: https://help.ads.microsoft.com/apex/index/3/en/60043. Marin Support Marin supports linking with work or personal accounts. To link with a work account, r...
Microsoft Advertising's Language Targeting Settings
Microsoft Advertising has two targeting options that are somewhat similar, but operate differently: Geography Targeting: This is a setting that targets a user’s geographical location. This can be set at the campaign or ad group level (generally set at campaign) and can be edited at any point in both the platform and Microsoft Ads. Language Targeting...
Microsoft Audience Ads
You can expand the scope of existing search campaigns to reach the audience of MSN.com and other publishers, without creating new ads or campaign types. Through existing Search campaigns, users will manage a bid modifier that ranges from -100% to +900% with a default value of 0. Setting to -100% will disable audience ads from serving. Note: Marin su...
Migrating To Microsoft Advertising Shopping
Migrating your Microsoft Advertising Shopping Ads and campaigns into the platform is really quite easy. Similarly, you can also create Microsoft Advertising Shopping campaigns in the platform with a hierarchy of up to two levels. Note: If you need to build deeper product trees, these can be created within the Microsoft Advertising platform and then ...
Negative Match Type Support For Microsoft Advertising
Microsoft Advertising supports Exact match and Phrase match negative keywords at the campaign and group level, using the following punctuation conventions: [keyword] = exact match "keyword" = phrase match keyword = phrase match Please note that Microsoft Advertising does not support Broad match negative keywords. If you were to upload a negative key...
Marin Support For The {BidMatchType} Parameter
Introduction The platform offers full support for the Microsoft Advertising {BidMatchType} and {MatchType} dynamic tracking parameters. {BIDMATCHTYPE} Vs. {MATCHTYPE} Microsoft Advertising offers two different dynamic tracking parameters for keyword match type that can be used in URLs for tracking purposes: {BidMatchType}: This parameter returns the...
Replacing Microsoft Advertising Product Group URL Landing Pages
When Microsoft Advertising serves Shopping Ads, the Landing Page is pulled directly from the merchant’s feed. If you are using URL Builder, this means that URLs for Product Groups often look like {lpurl}?mkwid=[uniq_id]¶m… where the parameters are applied based on URL Builder settings. When ads are served to users, URLs do not receive any sp...
Setting Up {Param1} For Keyword-Level URL Tracking
Important note: This article only applies if you are not currently using Microsoft Advertising's Destination URL field at the keyword level. By default, Microsoft Advertising serves creative URLs on the Microsoft Advertising Search Engine Results Page. Therefore if you wish to have the keyword URLs serve instead (switching from creative-level tra...
Sponsored Products For Microsoft Ads
Sponsored Products are an extension (or sub-type) of Microsoft Advertising's Shopping campaigns whereby the manufacturer and retailer share the cost of advertising with the aim of driving product sales. This is designed to achieve better alignment of marketing efforts between the manufacturer and the retailer by co-bidding on Shopping products. Mari...
Testing Landing Pages Using {Param1} And {Param2}
You can test your landing pages using Microsoft Advertising's dynamic parameters to rotate between landing pages and compare metrics to determine the better performing page. Using dynamic parameters {param1} and {param2} will allow you to maintain keyword-level tracking while testing separate landing pages. How To Test Your Landing Pages In Microsof...
Understanding Microsoft Advertising's Budget Methods
Our platform's Microsoft Advertising budgeting options are very similar to those found in the Microsoft Advertising user interface. There are three budget methods to choose from: Monthly, Daily (Standard) and Daily (Accelerated). We'll look at these in more detail below. Microsoft Advertising's Budgeting Options Let's take a look at the available op...
Understanding Microsoft Advertising-Specific Bulk Upload Options
When uploading a bulk upload that includes only Microsoft Advertising keywords, you can use the following Microsoft Advertising specific parameters to set the bids by match type and the Microsoft Advertising parameters. Note: These headers cannot be used with other publishers. Microsoft Advertising Bulk Upload Headers The following bulk upload colum...
Using Campaign And Group Targeting
Microsoft Advertising allows for targeting settings to be set at the campaign and/or the group level. Newly-created groups will use campaign targeting settings, unless targeting is specified for the group at the time of creation, in which case the group will use group-defined targeting settings. If a group is using campaign targeting settings, group...
Using Dynamic Text Insertion With {Param2} And {Param3}
In much the same way that Google has its Live Ads feature, Microsoft Advertising offers similar functionality for dynamic text insertion with the use of {param2} and {param3}. This feature allows you to insert values (both numbers and text) at the keyword level to automatically update your ads. Examples Of {Param2} And {Param3} Imagine you are biddi...
Using Hybrid Groups And Content Keywords
For Microsoft Advertising accounts with URL by Match Type, when creating a group targeting both Search and Content, it is highly recommended to create Content match type keywords for all other keywords in the group. Not doing so will result in cost being put in unattributed row and revenue being misattributed to another keyword. This is because, eve...
"An Attempt Was Made To Create A Duplicate Of A Keyword That Already Exists" (Microsoft Ads Only)
You may encounter the following error message when working with keywords in the platform: An Attempt was Made to Create a Duplicate of a Keyword That Already Exists This error is often due to Microsoft Advertising "normalization". Microsoft Advertising will remove special characters or extraneous words like "a" or "the", which then results in a du...
"CARTOP_TYPE_BULK_SYNCING" (Microsoft Ads Only)
This error message will appear in the Activity Log in the description of an activity that has received a Failed status. What Causes The Issue? This error is related to some items within the Microsoft Advertising campaigns that are currently not fully synced between the platform and the publisher; these may be in an Editing, Held or To be Resent stat...
"Com.Marin.Msdb.Vo.KeywordInstance_$$_javassist_118 Cannot Be Cast To Com.Marin.Msdb.Vo.Msn.MsnKeyword" (Microsoft Ads Only)
When using the platform to bulk upload Microsoft Advertising keywords, you may encounter the following error message: Error: com.marin.msdb.vo.KeywordInstance_$$_javassist_118 cannot be cast to com.marin.msdb.vo.msn.MsnKeyword What Causes The Issue? The bulk upload is failing because the platform failed to create Microsoft Advertising keywords pos...
"Error: Incorrect Publisher Insertion Parameters."
When using the Network publisher insertion parameters {ifSearch:s}{ifContent:c} in non-Google publisher accounts, you may encounter the following error: Error: Incorrect Publisher Insertion Parameters What Causes The Issue? This issue occurs when the publisher insertion parameters {ifSearch:s}{ifContent:c} are used for non-Google objects, as Micro...
"Error Authentication Token Expired. Please Renew It Or Obtain A New Token"
You may encounter the following error message when working with Microsoft Advertising in the platform: "Error Authentication token expired. Please renew it or obtain a new token" How To Fix The Issue To resolve this issue simply: Navigate to the Channels tab Click Manage Accounts Select your Microsoft Advertising account, then click Reverify Acc...
"Error Communicating With Microsoft Advertising." (Microsoft Ads Only)
The error will show as one of the following: "There is an error communicating with Microsoft Ads. Please try again and contact your CEM if the problem persists" "Error communicating with Microsoft Ads API" What Causes The Issue? This error occurs when there is an Error to be resent, Failed or Partially Succeeded bulk upload operation to Microsoft Ad...
"Microsoft Advertising Distribution Error 1250" (Microsoft Advertising Only)
If you have a Microsoft Advertising account with market/language set to something other than US, CA, or IN, you must target Search and Search Partner for Distribution. Otherwise, the following error may appear: Error: MSN, 1250, Network provided is not valid for the distribution channel. How To Fix The Issue Set Distribution target to Search and S...
"MSN, 1542, A Keyword With The Specified Match Type Already Exists" (Microsoft Ads Only)
When adding new Microsoft Advertising keywords through the platform, you may encounter the following error message: Error: MSN, 1542, A keyword with the specified match type already exists., en_US What Causes This Issue? This error occurs when the new keyword added is similar to an existing keyword. Microsoft Advertising will then consider the tw...
"MSN, 2806, , En_US" (Microsoft Ads Only)
You may come across the following error message when adding new creatives in Microsoft Advertising: Microsoft Advertising Error: Error: MSN, 2806, , en_US What Causes The Issue? This error occurs when uploading a creative to an ad group which already contains an RAIS (Rich Ads In Search) ad in Microsoft Advertising. Ad groups with RAIS ads cannot ...
"One Or More Of The Keyword Bid Amounts Are Less Than The Floor Price."
When pushing bids to publishers, you may encounter the following error message: Error: One or more of the keyword bid amounts are less than the floor price. What Causes The Issue? This problem is most commonly caused by having a bid that is smaller than the minimum floor price (the lowest amount you can bid) in the publisher. For example: The bid...
"Parent Group Does Not Target Search Network, Enable Search Network To Add This Keyword" (Microsoft Ads Only)
When trying to upload keywords to Microsoft Advertising Content Ad groups, you may encounter an error message such as this and the upload fails: Error: Parent Group does not target Search network, enable Search network to add this keyword What Causes The Issue? This is a known issue with the platform. Our engineers are aware of it and we will ende...
"The Ad Failed One Or More Checks During Editorial Review" (Microsoft Only)
If you drill into the Activity Log ID number or download the error file, you will find the following: Error *The ad failed one or more checks during editorial review. What Causes The Issue? This means that the keywords did not pass the Microsoft editorial review when attempting to post to the publisher. If too many errors come through, the entire ...
"The Ad Title Failed Editorial Validation." (Microsoft Ads Only)
This error is due to certain symbols in the headline that are incorrectly formatted after saving. Example, if there is a registered trademark ® in the ad, you will need to save the bulk sheet as Unicode Text in order to avoid Excel from changing the symbol to a �. How To Fix The Issue From the Accounts > Ads, filter under the Headline for Contain...
"The Network Combination Submitted Is Not A Valid Combination"
When setting your network value, you may see this following error message: Error: The Network combination submitted is not a valid combinations What Causes The Issue? If you are experiencing this issue, it is because Microsoft Advertising's Network value is set at the Group level. If you try to set the Network Value at a level other than Group (i....
"The Title Of The Ad Exceeds The Maximum Length" (Microsoft Ads Only)
When creating new ads, this error message may appear in the Activity Log: Microsoft Advertising Error: The title of the ad exceeds the maximum length. What Causes The Issue? This error occurs when an ad headline exceeds the maximum number of characters. How To Fix The Issue To fix this error, reduce the number of characters in your headline. Micro...
“Microsoft Advertising Minimum Bid For Match Type Is $X.XX” (Microsoft Ads Only)
When attempting to increase bids for Microsoft Advertising keywords (most commonly at the group level), you may encounter one of the following errors: Microsoft Advertising minimum bid for broad match type is $0.05 Microsoft Advertising minimum bid for content match type is $0.05 Microsoft Advertising minimum bid for phrase match type is $0.05 ...
“One Or More Of The Keyword Bid Amounts Are Greater Than The Ceiling Price” (Microsoft Ads Only)
When adding new Microsoft Advertising keywords through the platform in the bulk upload format, you may encounter the following error message: One or more of the keyword bid amounts are greater than the ceiling price. What Causes The Issue? This error occurs when the new keyword added has a search bid/max CPC that is higher than the campaign's dail...
“The Network Provided Is Not Allowed For Specified Publisher Countries” (Microsoft Ads Only)
When uploading new campaigns to Microsoft Advertising via the platform, the upload could fail and you may encounter the following error message: MSN, 1253, The network provided is not allowed for specified publisher countries., en_US This message will appear within the Activity Log when you click on the Activity ID, and also within the downloaded...
Bulk Uploading Keywords To Microsoft Advertising Fails (Microsoft Ads Only)
When uploading Microsoft Advertising keywords through the platform by bulk sheet, the operation may fail and provide the following error message: Operation failed with error: Error: java.lang.NullPointerException What Causes The Issue? This problem is most likely caused by one or more of the keywords in the bulk sheet containing an extra space. Ev...
Bulk Uploading Keywords With Multiple Spaces Fails (Microsoft Ads Only)
When bulk uploading keywords with multiple spaces in Microsoft Advertising, you may encounter an error message such as this: Group "PowPow Sports - V-neck Graphic Tee" already contains the keyword: "tennis white apparel" What Causes The Issue? In Microsoft Advertising, keywords can be different with 1 space in between keywords or 2 spaces, for exa...
Keyword Level Conversions Data Not Matching Creative Level Or Total Conversion Data
When using creative level tracking for Microsoft Advertising, you may notice that you miss keyword level revenue compared to the creative-level revenue and/or compared to the totals row in the Keywords tab. What Causes The Issue? This problem most commonly occurs when you use creative level tracking for Microsoft Advertising and have the {MatchType}...
No Microsoft Advertising Conversions Are Appearing In The Platform
Despite having revenue tracking fully set up, and having had verified conversion actions, the platform still reports zero conversions for Microsoft Advertising creatives. The problem occurs when using creative-level revenue tracking. What Causes The Issue? This issue is commonly caused by the following reasons: The revenue tracking parameters insert...