An exciting new announcement just was released by Bing/Microsoft (Yes I said Bing and exciting in the same sentence.) over the weekend. Microsoft now has Microsoft Audience Ads and the targeting may rival Facebook.
Now, Bing search advertisers will be able to extend their campaigns through what Microsoft is calling “Audience Ads” across various Microsoft and third-party properties. The immediate question is: What makes Audience Ads different, compared with Google or Facebook? Google can extend search query data into display campaigns. Google also offers audience targeting. Both Google and Facebook have AI and machine-learning assets.
Basically, this reaches millions of people you can’t reach on Google or Facebook. Microsoft says that there are 63 million search users that Google can’t reach in the MSAN. Bing reportedly sees over 20 billion monthly searches around the world and has more than 500,000 active Bing advertisers.
The Microsoft audience graph consists of 120 million Office365 subscribers, 1.5 billion Windows users and 500 million LinkedIn users. LinkedIn professional data is a unique element in the mix. There’s also data from Outlook and Skype users.
This video explains how the audience ads work.