Bing Ads pilots Custom Audiences with Adobe
To help advertisers use more customer data to target users with personalized offers, Microsoft announced a pilot of Custom Audiences, a type of remarketing list generated using a brand’s own customer data to create richer user segments.
Bing Ads is testing a Custom Audiences feature.
When a brand’s data platform manager (DMP) connects to this Custom Audiences feature, it can import its Custom Audiences segments into Bing Ads for search remarketing.
Adobe said Adobe Audience Manager is the first DMP to integrate. Microsoft and Adobe first teamed up in March in part to make themselves more competitive against rivals like Salesforce and Oracle.
Microsoft said Custom Audiences allows brands to target audiences that have been built using their own customer data, like purchase history or subscription renewals, by importing these audiences into Bing Ads. However, for now, these customers must use Adobe Audience Manager as their DMP. An Adobe rep said this gives brands a new level of detail into their customers so they can better understand the individuals behind searches and utilize more targeted parameters.
And Bing said connecting search campaigns with a CRM or other custom audience data means brands can provide different ad copy to users who are their top spenders or increase their bids on ads intended to reach their best customers, for example.
“We’re actively working to integrate with other large DMPs later this year,” Bing added in a blog post.
Microsoft announced an additional US-only pilot of In-Market Audiences, which are curated lists of users that have been determined to be in-market for a particular purchase category based on user signals across Bing, MSN and other Microsoft services.
Bing Ads provides the lists. There are 14 In-Market Audiences available so far, including apparel, finance, home and garden, travel and tourism and vehicles. More will come this summer.
To use, advertisers simply associate the appropriate In-Market audiences to their ad groups.
“When these lists are associated to ad groups, you can target and modify bids for these audiences, similar to Remarketing in Paid Search lists,” Bing added. “Say you’re a travel site looking to target searchers who are ready to book a summer vacation. Bing Ads looks for people who are clicking on ads related to hotels and flights, searching for relevant vacation terms, or checking out hotel reviews, for example, and predicts whether these users are ready to buy. Users identified as likely to purchase are included in the Travel & Tourism/Accommodations In-Market Audience, which you can associate to your ads. Since you know these people are more likely to book a vacation, you could increase your bid, for example, to help you capture this valuable audience.”
As a result, Bing said In-Market Audience lists can help increase conversions and improve bids and targeting.