Getting started with Microsoft Advertising Editor

Learn the three basic steps necessary every time you use Microsoft Advertising Editor: Download, update, and then post campaign data.

Getting started with Microsoft Advertising Editor is simple. Download, install, and then launch Microsoft Advertising Editor. Every time you sign in, you'll complete three basic steps: Get changes (or download your account data) from Microsoft Advertising, make changes to your campaigns in Microsoft Advertising Editor, and then Post (upload) your changes back to Microsoft Advertising.

Get your accounts from Microsoft Advertising

Apart from installation, your first step is to get (or download) campaign data from your Microsoft Advertising account. After entering your user name and password, you'll be prompted to choose which campaigns to get. For agencies with multiple accounts, you can choose to only get specific ones. Keep in mind that if you have multiple accounts, it can sometimes take several minutes to get your data.

Whenever you want to get your current campaign data from Microsoft Advertising, use the Get changes button in the toolbar. You can then make your changes and Post back to Microsoft Advertising.

These are the steps you'll go through every time you sign in to Microsoft Advertising Editor: Get your accounts, make changes to your campaigns, and then post when you're done.

Make changes to your campaigns

Getting started. You can either create new campaigns or import existing campaigns from Yahoo or Google Ads easily.

  • To create new campaigns, from the data view, select Add campaign. For each campaign, you'll need to go to the Manage tab on the left pane, where you can also manage ad groups, ads, and keywords.
  • To import a campaign, first export the data into a CSV file. If you're using Yahoo, for example, you'll export your campaigns into a spreadsheet and save the file on your computer. Select Import > Import from a file. Microsoft Advertising Editor will walk you through a wizard to finish importing the data.
  • For Google Ads specifically, you can still import campaign data from a CSV file, but you also have the option of importing data by signing in to your Google Ads account and letting Microsoft Advertising Editor do the rest. Learn more at Importing and exporting with Microsoft Advertising Editor.

Managing your campaign. Microsoft Advertising Editor has many tools to make managing your campaigns easy.

  • You can update each item individually or select multiple items to update them all at once. Make changes to selected items by updating the fields in the edit pane.
  • The left pane will help you navigate through your campaigns or drill down to particulars, such as ad groups.
  • Search and filtering help you quickly find what you want to update. Learn more at Advanced search and filtering.

Example. Let's say you want to keep your ads relevant and make sure they're shown on the first page of search results. You'll want to update your bids. You can use Microsoft Advertising Editor's bid estimation tool to review bids individually or in bulk.

  1. Under the Manage tab in the left pane, select Keywords and targeting > Keywords.
  2. Select the keywords you want to get bids for.
  3. Select Estimate bid > Get bid estimates to research the best first page, mainline position, and best position bids.
  4. Select Apply est. bid for first page to choose the type of bid to apply to your keywords.

    Note: Based on Microsoft research, we recommend a bid of at least $0.30 USD for all keywords. Even though the minimum bid is only $0.05, keywords with bids this low usually can't compete with bids from other advertisers on the same keywords; and, as a result, your ads won't show.

Post your account changes

Once you're done updating your campaigns, it's important to post your account changes so your new campaigns, keywords, and bids can start running immediately. Don't forget to double-check your language and location settings, as these can affect where we show your ads.

To update your account, select the Post button in the toolbar—and, that's it!

Note: You should post your changes at the end of each session in Microsoft Advertising Editor.

What's not supported in Microsoft Advertising Editor

Microsoft Advertising Editor is a powerful desktop tool, but not everything can be managed offline. Below are some features that we advise you manage in Microsoft Advertising:

  • Auto-generated remarketing lists
  • Feed-based audience campaigns
  • Multimedia ads in the audience network (Microsoft Advertising Editor only supports audience ads with one image)

Please note this is not a comprehensive list and there are some other features that are only available online.

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