Microsoft B2B ads,
a playbook from budget to pipeline.

Search captures buyers who already look for you. The Audience Network creates familiarity in target accounts before they search.

There is no Microsoft minimum that forces a large spend. A practical start for a single region:

• Search: enough daily budget to cover your top 20 to 50 keywords at the suggested bid. Search spend should follow demand, not a fixed number.
• Audience Network: a fixed test budget per tier for four to six weeks, so each target account can be reached a few times.
• Rule of thumb for ABM: divide the Audience Network budget by the number of target accounts. If it comes to less than a few dollars per account per month, cut the list to your top tier rather than spreading thin.

IntentBid shows the cost per reached account and per engaged account, so you can move money between tiers on evidence rather than guesses.

Creatives. Native placements in Outlook and MSN look like content, so write them like a headline: one problem, one outcome, the category word your buyer uses. Prepare landscape and square images and several headlines; Microsoft combines them. Speak to the job function you target ("for finance teams"), not to a named company.

Frequency. Cap impressions per person so a target account sees you regularly without fatigue. A few impressions per person per week is a common starting point for awareness; lower it for small accounts with few matched people.

Landing pages. Send each job function to the page that answers its question: product overview for IT, ROI or pricing for finance. IntentBid can draft these pages.

Compliance. Every campaign is created paused and checked step by step against Microsoft limits: character counts, image sizes, destination URL and editorial rules.

Clicks alone undercount B2B display, because most people at a target account see the ad and visit later. Measure in this order:

1. Reach: target accounts with impressions (Microsoft company report).
2. Engagement: target accounts that clicked or visited, and how many pages they read.
3. Buying stage: accounts that came back, visited pricing or a demo page.
4. Pipeline: accounts that became opportunities in your CRM.

IntentBid shows the first three per company in one report, with an engagement score from impressions, clicks, visits, depth and recency, and sends companies and scores to HubSpot for the fourth.