As 77% of people believe Google deceives users, Microsoft Advertising is becoming a staple for businesses. It’s no longer considered a backup plan, but a powerful advertising tool that offers some of the best demographic options, in-depth optimisations and a lower CPC.

Despite being underutilised in the past, Microsoft Advertising knows what it takes to rival platforms such as Google and will do everything it takes to enhance their own network. If you want to explore their latest update – LinkedIn profile targeting in Search and Audience campaigns – this article tells you everything you need to know.

Plus, with Google under the firing line for its lawsuit, Microsoft users are only expected to rise.

What is LinkedIn profile targeting?

LinkedIn profile data was first introduced in 2018 when Microsoft bought LinkedIn. It was initially in BETA and only available in the U.S.

Now, LinkedIn profile targeting is available for both Search and Audience campaigns in the UK, US, Canada, Australia, France and Germany. The integration enables advertisers to serve text ads, Dynamic Search Ads and shopping campaigns to customers based on their company, job function and industry, acting as “the perfect complement to other targeting solutions”.

You can also use campaign bid modifiers for specific industries or job functions related to your ideal target customers. According to Microsoft, this data encompasses more than 100 industries and 80,000 companies worldwide.

Outside of LinkedIn itself, Microsoft Advertising is the only other platform to offer LinkedIn profile targeting which is what makes it so unique. If you’re trying to reach an older or more professional audience, Microsoft Advertising is top of the leaderboard for helping you achieve the best results.

What are the benefits of LinkedIn profile targeting?

The main benefit of LinkedIn profile targeting is that you can target a professional audience through a readily-available network that already focuses on that demographic. If you’re a Microsoft Advertising user, you can make the most of LinkedIn’s audience without leaving the platform. What’s more, if your target personas are CEOs or business strategists, you can literally target people with that job title in a specific industry. It’s extremely advanced.

LinkedIn profile targeting for your Microsoft Advertising Search and Audience campaigns saves you both time and effort.

As well as offering a more seamless process, being able to target LinkedIn users via Microsoft Advertising allows you to compare targeting settings and results with ease. If you’ve noticed something is working particularly well in your Microsoft Advertising campaign, imitating similar targeting on LinkedIn could maximise your results.

If you want to compare your Microsoft Advertising performance with Google Ads and Facebook Ads, you can do so here. Adzooma Management gives you the tools and data to manage your campaigns from a single screen and action smarter optimisations in seconds.

In addition, while LinkedIn still skews towards business-minded professionals, the industries, interests and demographics of LinkedIn users have become much broader, making it an effective advertising channel for your business.

Why not just use LinkedIn itself?

Microsoft Advertising generates over 12 million monthly searches, reaching over 63 million users that Google does not. That’s a significant amount of sales you could be missing out on – just by underestimating the potential of Microsoft.

Not only that, but 54% of Bing users are over the age of 45, and a third of Microsoft Advertising users have a household income of over $100,000. If we look at the demographics for LinkedIn, 49% of its users have an annual income of over $75,000, and 66% of them are between 46-56+ years old.

For Microsoft users who haven’t yet tested LinkedIn Advertising, this brings with it familiar campaign creation and management tools which makes LinkedIn profile targeting easier than ever before. If you’re already advertising on Microsoft, investing some of your budget into LinkedIn is a smart way to enhance your results.

The fact that some advertisers are skeptical about using LinkedIn could also work in your favour.

As our PPC Manager Sophie Logan told us about Microsoft, being an underutilised advertising network offers much lower barrier to entry for many businesses, making platforms such as Microsoft (and LinkedIn) “a more financially viable opportunity”.

Speaking about the benefits of Microsoft Advertising alone, Sophie added: “The less you have to spend on generating a conversion, the higher your ROI, resulting in a more profitable outcome.”

How does it work?

LinkedIn profile targeting is available for Search campaigns, Dynamic Search Ad Campaigns, Microsoft Shopping Campaigns and Audience campaigns. It works by allowing you to target users based on their LinkedIn information.

If you want to increase or decrease the chances of your ad showing to a certain audience, you can do so by adjusting your bids. However, LinkedIn profile targeting doesn’t narrow your audience. This means that if you target a certain company, you aren’t excluding every other person who does not work for that company.

So, if you’re promoting accounting services, it might be a good idea to increase the exposure of your ads to users between 35-44 years old. You can do this by adjusting your bids, which will account more of your budget towards that particular audience.

Keep in mind that you can’t target more than 1,000 companies in a single ad group or campaign, but this shouldn’t affect the majority of advertising campaigns. There’s also a slight chance you might not find your exact company, industry or job function as it’s a pretty new feature, but more are looking to be added in the near future.

How do I get started?

First up, if you aren’t already on Microsoft, find out how you can sign up here. It’s quick and easy to create an account.

You should have a clear idea of who you want to target before you get started. For LinkedIn profile targeting, think about dimensions such as company, job function and industry, as well as the segments within those dimensions. This could be anything from Microsoft and marketing to consumer goods.

Next, click on Settings and select ‘Edit target categories’ to add your desired targeting to your campaigns or ad groups.

To review the performance of your LinkedIn campaigns, go to the Demographics tab and select either company, industry or job function. You can customise your interface depending on the metrics that matter to you which makes improving your campaigns even easier – yet another advantage of Microsoft Advertising.

To gain more Microsoft-specific insights, optimise your campaigns here. Our free platform allows users to create reports, generate one-click Opportunities and set up fail-safe alerts in a few clicks.

If you look deeper into the platform, there’s also bid adjustments you can use to focus your LinkedIn advertising on a specific audience.

Reach your LinkedIn potential through Microsoft ads

If you want to target a more affluent audience, save time and effort by utilising Microsoft Advertising features. Linkedin profile targeting allows you to reach ultra specific customers and speed up the time it takes to manage your advertising – all under one roof.

Don’t forget, if you’re looking for a free way to manage and get the most out of your ads, try Adzooma.