With its acquisition of LinkedIn, it was only a matter of time before Microsoft began integrating their Bing ads and LinkedIn platforms.
Recently we had an account added to the Microsoft Audience Network (MSAN) Pilot which allowed us to begin testing LinkedIn demographic data as an audience target on Bing ads.
While this feature is not yet available in all accounts, I’ve outlined where you can see the audiences and how to set them up for targeting once they are available in your account.
Once activated, your demographics tab within a campaign will include three new options: Company, Industry, and Job Function.
To add one of these targeting methods simply select the demographic, then click on the “Add” button.
For Company, you are given a search option that provides a list of matching companies as well as the potential audience size. You can also add bid adjustments and select between bidding (target the audience but also allow other targeting options) and “target and bid’ (where ads are ONLY shown to the selected audience).
There are thousands of companies to search from, however the requirements appear to be larger organizations only – start ups and companies below 1000+ employees don’t appear to show up – but let me know if you are able to find them!
Industry is a lot like using Google Ads in-market audiences. You are given options for different industries and then sub options to either target or exclude. A key difference here is that you can only select sub options and not entire industry categories.
Job function is similar to Industry, however there appear to only be 26 total options – Microsoft must have data that suggests all jobs fit within these 26 categories. Some are rather broad like “Research” so it is possible that these do cover most roles.
Once you’ve selected your targets just make sure you have ads and any other targeting options. What is nice is that as you add targeting Bing’s audience size indicator will update so adding multiple demographic targeting options will show you the estimated audience size across Bing’s network (search and display).
It’s still early in our tests, but once we have some additional findings we’ll keep you posted!