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Search + native: 5 tactics the pros use for maximizing ROI

Looking to increase customer engagement and campaign ROI? Combining search with native ads can broaden your reach and help you connect with the right customers at the right moment.

Native ads blend seamlessly into the user experience, appearing as part of the surrounding media. Because the ads are seen as relevant content, consumers spend as much time viewing native ads as they do editorial content. In fact, when compared to traditional display ads, consumers look at native ads 52% more frequently.

Microsoft Audience Ads is our premium native ad solution available on the Microsoft Audience Network. Below, we’ve outlined how Audience Ads can help boost your marketing performance and the five winning tactics marketing pros use for combining search and native.

Better performance with Microsoft Audience Ads

Incorporating Audience Ads into your search advertising strategy can help you enhance performance in multiple ways. The Microsoft Audience Network offers premium, brand-safe native ad placements on MSN,, and Microsoft Edge as well as our partner sites, extending your reach to millions of people. Audience Ads combines audience and intent data with artificial intelligence and machine learning to help you engage with highly relevant audiences, boosting clicks, conversions, and campaign ROI.

Plus, performance tracking is easy. When you extend search campaigns with the Microsoft Audience Network, you can use the same, familiar Microsoft Advertising tools, reports, and analytics to monitor performance. 

Maximize campaign ROI with these 5 tactics

Ready to get going? Here are five pro tactics for combining search and native to engage consumers and amplify campaign impact:

1. Increase audience targeting precision

Reduce wasted clicks and impressions by reaching the right audience from the start. Leverage data around brand preference, product and service categories as well as search and conversion history to increase personalization and relevance and deliver the right message at the right time to the right person. Employ user profile targeting in areas like age and gender or even professional profile. And don’t forget location and device targeting. Be sure that you are bidding on your target audience.

You should also be leveraging the signals that are relevant to your offering and audience to focus targeting. Take advantage of user intent targeting through remarketing, in-market audiences, custom audiences, and product audiences.

Microsoft Graph, which powers Microsoft Audience Ads, makes targeting easier and more effective. Its robust data sets include search and web activity, LinkedIn professional profile data, and demographic and customer data. These data sets, combined with machine learning and an ongoing flow of fresh signals, deliver a deep understanding of the user.

2. Work smarter with artificial intelligence (AI)

Amplify campaign impact with AI and machine learning capabilities. AI-powered services such as Microsoft Graph can help you deliver personalized products, content, and offers by classifying consumers into intent and profile segments, providing deeper insights, targeting and personalization.

AI can also help you save time and optimize performance through streamlined campaign management and informed placement decisions. Use AI and machine learning solutions to help guide ad selection, relevancy matching, and pricing, click, and conversion prediction. AI can also predict next best action and deliver even more targeted content.

3. Optimize campaigns by using all the tools

If you’re looking to save time and boost ROI even more, here are a few more tools to add to your marketing toolbox. Increase customization and automation using ad extensions for price, image, video, or even flyers. Automatically create and deliver ads using Dynamic Search Ads. Save time and money by using automated bidding to bid higher on searches that are most likely to convert. Plus, manage and reallocate budgets in real time through Shared Budgets.

4. Protect your brand with high-quality, brand-safe placements

Working with publishers that support multiple native ad formats is important. Of course, there’s more to it than simply blending in. You want to be sure that your brand is associated with trustworthy and relevant content.

Choose reputable publishers that prioritize brand safety, so you won’t have to worry about your brand being connected to objectionable content. Also, make sure that you have control over where your brand shows up and visibility into the domains driving traffic to your campaign.

Microsoft Audience Network sites are brand-safe environments, combining machine learning, AI, and oversight by live editors to process and review content from reputable companies like NBC and The Wall Street Journal.

5. Build trust by safeguarding privacy

Data shows that consumers care about privacy, and so should you. Make sure that the publishers you use prioritize privacy and are transparent about how data is collected, stored, and used.

Microsoft consumer and advertising solutions are guided by an uncompromising respect for user privacy and control, data security, and platform integrity, so you can be confident your brand is represented at its best.

Get started today!

Combining search and native ads offers tremendous opportunities to reach more customers and boost conversions. And using these five tactics can help you make the most of your search + native campaigns.
A great place to start is with Audience Ads on the Microsoft Audience Network. To make things easy, here are two ways to run Audience Ads:

1. Extend your existing search campaign

Your existing search campaign can be extended to include Audience Ads on the Microsoft Audience Network. Continue using a single budget to conveniently manage all campaigns and increase clicks from target audiences. This option is currently available in the US, UK, Canada, and Australia.

2. Create an audience campaign

You can also manage your audience campaign with a dedicated budget and optimized performance metrics. The audience campaign’s budget is separate from your search campaigns. Audience campaigns are currently in beta only in the US and UK.

One last tip: Audience Ads are image centric. You can take full advantage of these premium placements by quickly and easily managing images via Image Extensions. Get started with Microsoft Audience Ads by adding your images today.