Microsoft Advertising announces Automotive Ads Open Beta

Microsoft Advertising announces Automotive Ads Open Beta

Microsoft Advertising announced the the open beta of a new product unique to Microsoft Advertising: Automotive Ads! This is now available to advertisers in the United States (US) and United Kingdom (UK).

What are Automotive Ads ?

Automotive Ads are feed-based product ads where automotive advertisers can upload all the attributes of their car inventory:

  • make,
  • model,
  • year,
  • trim,
  • image,
  • URLs,
  • State of Vehicle (New/Used/CPO)
  • etc.

Once uploaded, you ads will show on the Microsoft Bing.com SERP right rail/mainline and the Bing image results page, as well as on native placements on the Microsoft Audience Network.

What it is important?

The new Microsoft Advertising Ads makes it possible to achieve 3 objectives::

  • Generate more volume: You will reach new car buyers who are closer to making a purchase and are in the comparison and transaction stages
  • Enhance the customer experience: Showcasing  your inventory photos, prices and more will help you increase your click-through-rate and thus qualified leads.
  • Save time with automation: With product feed, you will generate ads more faster and easily. In addition, your ads will be more accurate (than keyword based ads) since it will take into account any change in inventory or prices.

Where Automotive Ads Will show up on Bing.com ?

Microsoft Automotive Ads are displayed in both search and Bing image results for users looking to purchase a car or searching for a vehicle.

Microsoft Advertising Automotive Ads
Bing.com SERP right rail
Automotive Ads - Showing in Image search
Automotive advertisement in image search

How to get started with Automotive Ads ?

To sign up for the open beta, you need first to be in the US or the UK. You can apply to the beta either by reaching out to your Microsoft Advertising rep or apply trough this form.

Once in the beta, you will have to provide a comprehensive and complete feed to maximize the performance of the your ads. Thus, in addition to the above list, you can still share in the feed some recommended attributes, like: engine, fuel type, transmission, exterior color …

Recommended attributes

An important element, pictures have to be high quality and relevant to the listed vehicle, ad and landing page.

Some examples of images that do or don’t work for Automotive Ads:

Some examples of images that do or don’t work for Automotive Ads.

How it works ?

Microsoft has shared a few setup items when you start running automotive ads:

Bids and budgets

  • Recommend to start with a between $50 – $500 daily budget to ensure consistent results for learning and optimisation.
  • Recommend to set bids similar to your text ad campaigns.

Targeting

  • Set location targeting in campaign settings as “United States” or “United Kingdom,” depending on the region you’re targeting. This will ensure ads are eligible to serve to all users searching from within the region.
  • Don’t start with any bid modifiers based on audiences – measure and monitor baseline performance first, and then fine-tune the ROI based on audiences.

Check check out the Automotive Ads help page for more details!

Results of Early Beta Testers

Microsoft has been testing Automotive Ads with early beta testers including automotive brands advertising new inventory and third-party sites showcasing their used inventory. Here are the first results:

  • Click and conversion lift : a 6-15% incremental click lift and 3-8% incremental conversion lift.
  • Lower CPCs – For OEMs, Automotive Ads have had 7-16% lower CPCs than corresponding generic search text ads, and third-party sites have seen a whopping 28-40% drop in CPCs

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.