What is Microsoft Advertising UET Consent Mode?

First introduced in 2020, Consent Mode was designed to help advertisers ensure their tracking activities align with GDPR and other digital data policies. It communicates a user’s cookie consent status to tracking systems, allowing only the compliant data to be collected and used.

With the launch of Consent Mode V2 in late 2023, Microsoft Advertising is enhancing its focus on end-user consent, particularly in response to the Digital Markets Act. Blocking of conversion data is done depending on user location, therefore only data from users in markets where we have started to enforce the need for a consent signal, will be blocked.

From May the 5th, advertisers will need to ensure they’re meeting these updated consent requirements, or risk losing critical tracking and reporting functionality. 

Why Does This Matter?

Failure to provide the necessary consent signals to Microsoft through your UET configuration could have serious consequences for your advertising efforts. Without these signals:

• Conversions may not be tracked: This means you won’t have accurate data on how well your campaigns are performing.
• Campaign optimization could suffer: Features that rely on conversion data, such as bid strategies and Performance Max campaigns, will be less effective.
• Audience segments won’t be created: This can hinder your ability to target specific groups of users, leading to a less efficient ad spend.

The bottom line? Without addressing these changes, you may face long-term challenges in campaign performance and data accuracy.

What Should You Do Next?

To ensure compliance and maintain the effectiveness of your campaigns, you’ll need to make some adjustments to your UET tag.

Here are three ways to do this (only one of them should be implemented):

1) By adjusting your UET cookie access based on consent status. 

You’ll need to add code to every page on your website to set your default consent setting, and add a separate code to update the setting once the user has provided or denied consent. 

Default setting snippet: 

Update consent settings snippet:

For more information, visit the UET help page.

2) Through the Transparency & Consent Framework (TCF) for UET (only if you have one in place). 

Microsoft integrated with IAB TCF v2.0 so consent signals can be passed directly or via a Consent Management Platform (CMP). This solution requires the following code snippet to be added above your UET tag:

For more information, visit the UET help page.

3) Through third party management tools like Google Tag manager (GTM).

Microsoft’s UET template now supports Google Tag Manager Consent Mode. Google’s Consent Management Platform (CMP) partner program integrates with most CMPs.

This integration allows Microsoft to retrieve the consent state directly from GTM, in the case where you are using both GTM and one of the supported Consent Management Platforms (CMPs).

For more information, visit the GTM consent mode help page. 

How does consent mode work on Microsoft?

Consent mode will be used via a new setting for UET called ‘ad_storage’. Depending on the user’s consent choice, the following scenarios will occur.

If ad_storage = ‘granted’ (Default)

• Cookies pertaining to advertising may be read and written in the 1st party (advertiser domain) or 3rd party context (bing.com).

If ad_storage=’denied’

• Write or read 1st party cookies (advertiser domain) – No ads cookies are written or read by UET when the user is on that advertiser website.

• Write 3rd party cookies (bing.com domain) – No ads cookies are written by UET when the user is on that advertiser website.

• Read 3rd party cookies (bing.com domain) – Microsoft 3rd party cookies are not read for advertising purposes. Microsoft 3rd party cookies are read for fraud and spam purposes only.

How to verify consent is being passed correctly to the UET tag

You can use the UET Tag Helper extension to validate setups and ensure compliance. When you run the Tag Helper on your website, it will surface the consent state “asc” parameter (below), which will show as “G” or “Granted” if consent is granted.

Another way to verify consent is being passed into the UET is by reviewing the conversions in the UI and checking conversion data is still being tracked.

What are the expected impacts on client performance once consent mode is successfully implemented?

After clients successfully integrate a consent signal with UET, conversion data will be tracked once again. However, it’s important to note that the total volume of conversions reported is likely to decrease. This reduction occurs because only conversions from users who have explicitly given consent will be tracked.

Users who either deny consent or do not interact with the consent banner will no longer be tracked and therefore won’t appear as reported conversions. Despite this, the change is necessary in order to comply with privacy regulations and respect user preferences. It’s important to keep this in mind when evaluating performance.

Modeled Conversions and how they can help bridge the gap in reporting

Conversion modeling can help fill the gap in these scenarios, when it’s not possible to observe the path between ad interactions and conversions. Modeled Conversions use advanced modeling techniques to analyze observable data and historical trends, quantifying the relationship between consented and unconsented users. Then, using observable user journeys where users have consented to cookie usage, Microsoft’s models will assess attribution paths for the unconsented journeys. This provides a more complete and accurate view of your conversion and revenue reporting — all while respecting user consent choices.

Where can I view Modeled Conversions and how do I interpret the data?

Reporting for Modeled Conversions will be in general availability starting on March the 5th in the following markets: France, Germany and the Netherlands. It will be activated by default to all eligible campaigns targeting these markets.

Microsoft will then progressively expand the rollout to other markets in the European Economic Area, the UK and Switzerland – providing more updates for these markets closer to the release date.

Conclusion

These upcoming changes to Microsoft Advertising Consent Mode are crucial for ensuring your campaigns remain compliant and effective in a rapidly changing digital environment. By taking the necessary steps to update your UET configuration, you can avoid data loss, maintain accurate reporting, and continue optimizing your campaigns for success.

With the deadline now fast approaching its imperative you action this change as soon as possible—review your current setup, implement the necessary changes, and ensure your campaigns are ready!

Evolving Our Opportunities Feature

Our users already know and love the power of our Opportunities feature, which has been invaluable for optimizing individual Profiles (i.e., ad accounts). But we asked ourselves: what else can we add to its functionality? What if there was a way to spot and highlight recommendations that consider the performance of all Profiles within a Project, across all your marketing channels? Imagine the potential for achieving even more efficient reach and better overall performance through cross-channel insights. This exciting possibility led us to enhance our popular Opportunities feature for an even more simplified and improved campaign management experience— all while preserving the individual Profile recommendations you know and trust.

Introducing Project-Level Opportunities

Adzooma is excited to unveil its latest feature: Project-Level Opportunities! This innovative addition generates Opportunities specific to the Project(s) you create in Adzooma. Now, you can enable cross-channel recommendations that consider all of the Profiles under a single Project. Our Project-Level Opportunities complement your existing Profile Opportunities, allowing you to layer both Opportunity types for advanced optimization.

Why This Feature Matters

Suppose you wanted to see direct comparisons of conversion costs across platforms so you can make informed budget allocation decisions. Or perhaps you need clear suggestions on how to optimize your budget based on performance data to improve your overall ROI. In these cases, an Opportunity might suggest shifting budget from an underperforming platform with a high cost-per-conversion to a more successful one with lower costs and higher lost impression shares. This small change lets you capitalize on the best-performing platforms for your Project, improving your paid media strategy. Not only does this encourage a holistic digital marketing approach, but it also gives you actionable insights based on multi-platform data.

How to Access Project-Level Opportunities

1. Log in to your Adzooma account
2. Navigate to ‘Projects’ > select desired Project
3. Click ‘Opportunities’

*Note: Similar to the Opportunities for a paid ads Profile, a Project’s Opportunities will refresh on your ‘Next Analysis’ date. Meaning, the frequency at which you receive all new Opportunities is dependent on your subscription plan. If you create a new Project before your Next Analysis date in hopes of getting your Opportunities early, you will still need to wait until the next refresh.

Ready to Optimize Across Platforms?

Let’s recap the key benefits of Project-Level Opportunities:

1. More comprehensive campaign optimization through layered insights
2. Improved budget allocation based on cross-platform performance
3. Enhanced ROI through data-driven decision making
4. A more holistic approach to your digital marketing strategy

By leveraging Project-Level Opportunities, you’re not just streamlining your workflow— you’re unlocking the potential for truly integrated, high-performing campaigns. Log in to Adzooma today to explore the possibilities of Project-Level Opportunities!

For more insightful tips, please head over to our blog, or get in touch to speak to our team if you have any questions!

Improved Account Selection Controls On Linking Page

We have introduced simplified highlighting options to the ad account selection step when creating paid ads Profiles, allowing users to effortlessly choose all or none of the listed subaccounts under their manager accounts. With this intuitive feature, connecting your ad accounts to Adzooma has never been quicker or easier, especially for freelancers or agencies who may manage several clients with numerous accounts.

Improved Pagination

To accommodate the Adzooma accounts with a large number of Profiles and Projects, we have increased the default number of Profiles that can be seen on the page to 100. For Projects, this has been set to 20, but you can choose from our other options to suit your specific needs, making it easier for users to quickly see a specific number of Profiles or Projects at a glance.

Team Members Link 

If you were having trouble finding where to add more team members to your Adzooma account, then you’re in luck – we have added a new “Team Members” link to the left navigation bar of the platform. User management is now much more intuitive, which will enhance team collaboration and increase workflow efficiency.

We’re thrilled to bring you these improvements that will positively affect your experience with the Adzooma platform, allowing you to spend more time gaining the most from the features that will improve your digital marketing efforts. Stay tuned for more updates and features!

For more insightful tips and updates, please head over to our blog, or get in touch to speak to our team if you have any questions!

When it comes to paid or organic media reports, very few solutions offer white-labeling functionalities, resulting in a disconnect between the data presented and the brand’s identity which can appear unprofessional, careless, or even under-resourced. 

To address this issue, Adzooma introduces Performance Report Branding – a powerful new feature designed to personalize your reports at both the account and Project levels! This dual approach ensures that your reports not only resonate with your clients’ distinct brands, but also positions you as the single source of truth for PPC, SEO, and web metrics insights.

How Performance Report Branding Works

• Account-Level Branding: When enabled, this feature will automatically apply your chosen brand colors and logos to all Adzooma reports. Every report you generate will be customized and branded, making them ready for immediate sharing with colleagues or clients without any extra effort.
• Project-Level Branding: If you are managing multiple clients in Adzooma, you can override the account-level settings to customize the brand colors and logos for individual Projects. Agencies and freelancers will gain the most from this overriding as it allows each report to be uniquely tailored to each client’s brand.

*Note: These features are exclusively available on Adzooma’s Silver & Gold plans! Upgrade today to gain access.

Why This Feature Matters

Adzooma reports go beyond basic metrics – they offer a comprehensive analysis of your PPC, SEO, and web metrics performance and provide actionable recommendations to holistically improve your digital marketing presence. By using this new branding feature, you can present these insights under your own brand, positioning yourself as a marketing expert and trusted strategic partner to your clients!

Personalizing Your Reports

To enable account-level branding:

• Log in to your Adzooma account
• Navigate to ‘Settings’ > ‘Report Branding’
• Choose your brand colors and upload your logo
• Toggle the ‘Enable Report Branding’ switch
• ‘Save Changes’

To enable Project-level branding:

• Log in to your Adzooma account
• Navigate to ‘Projects’ > select desired Project
• ‘Settings’ > ‘Report Branding’
• Choose your brand colors and upload your logo
• Toggle the ‘Enable Project-Level Report Branding’ switch
• ‘Save Changes’

To explore the Performance Report Branding feature and see how it can elevate your client presentations, try upgrading to our Silver or Gold packages today! 

For more insightful tips and updates, please head over to our blog, or get in touch to speak to our team if you have any questions!

This news isn’t surprising.

Responsive Search Ads (RSA) have been the only obvious ad type in new ad accounts for the past few quarters. They tend to get the lionshare of impressions when they’re in an ad group, and perform well if crafted well. 

Rather than give into panic (which is an understandable response when the ad networks announce any major changes), consider these action items:

• Audit your current ETAs for winning creative.
• Honor RSA Rules of Engagement

It’s important to communicate to any stakeholders this change and the impact it will have on creative control. Brands with extremely rigid content criteria will need to be ok with cohorts of approved content, as opposed to individually approved ads

Audit Your Current ETAs for Winning Creative

Advertisers have correctly gotten into the habit of including one RSA and two ETAs per ad group. This combo works because the ETAs are able to teach the RSA what combinations work and which do not. 

Now that there’s an expiration date on that strategy, we’ll want to audit our current ETAs, and distill:

• Which calls to action (CTAs) work best?
• Does your brand lend itself better to the CTA being in headline 1 or 2?
• Does mandatory content perform well or should it be relegated to headline three where it won’t serve as often?
• Should you be title-casing your descriptions or just your headlines?
• Are your headlines/descriptions engaging or callout copy?

This is the best time to test creative assumptions and conduct a really thoughtful audit of existing creative. 

Honor RSA Rules of Engagement 

The biggest complaint against RSAs is the lack of control and data. We’re at the mercy of the algorithm learning which CTAs go well with which engaging statements.

Thankfully we’re able to pin content to a specific spot to ensure quality control. 

When creative was left entirely to humans, quality control was subject to human error:

With RSAs, advertisers are asked to supply a minimum of five headlines and four descriptions, ensuring our ads will always have enough assets for all possible placements. 

By using pins, you can ensure CTAs always serve in position two (or one). You’ll also be able to simulate an ETA if you desire (risking poor ad quality and limiting impressions).

While we can’t see all the metrics associated with an individual asset, getting a sense for how many impressions an individual item has can at least give you a sense of how often it’s being shown. 

Takeaways

Yes, change is scary – however if you get used to the ad format and take proper steps to pin, creative quality should not suffer. 

Using Adzooma, you can get alerts for ads that might be underperforming and/or begin adding RSAs into your campaigns. Our tool is always free, and can help you navigate this change. Claim your account here.

If you’re managing both Google and Microsoft campaigns, you’ll know the headache of optimizing one and then painstakingly having to replicate your work over to the other account. 

And if you’re just using Google, you’re missing out on new audiences, improved results, and a better reach because you just don’t have the time to set up and manage both accounts. Until now. 

Thanks to AdSync by Adzooma, you can reach new audiences while saving time. 

This brand new feature imports your Google Ads campaigns into Microsoft Ads – and keeps them updated. Any improvements to your campaigns, including adding new keywords, adjusting for better ad copy, etc, will be automatically copied over to the same campaigns on Microsoft. That’s two advertising accounts managed at once. 

And if you’re new to Microsoft, we’ll also give you $125 free ad spend to get started. 

Same campaigns, different advertising accounts 

Our new AdSync feature allows you to import your campaigns into Microsoft advertising in a few easy steps. With it, you can: 

• Import every campaign in your account, or just select your best ones. 
• Adjust bids and budgets, allowing you to reduce or increase your budget for Microsoft. 
• Edit the status of your campaigns, so you can pause them until you’ve done the final checks. 

Optimizations automatically synced to Microsoft 

Two birds, one stone. With AdSync, every change you make to your Google campaigns is copied over to Microsoft. 

Whatever optimizations, new keywords, ad copy or alterations you make, we’ll copy them. And don’t worry – if you’ve altered your bid or budget for Microsoft we’ll keep this up to date as well. 

If you’re spending £500 on a Google campaign and set up a decrease in budget of 10%, your Microsoft campaign will be £450. If you update your Google budget to £1000, we’ll change your Microsoft one to £900, making sure you always spend 10% less. 

Every change is covered in AdSync, so you can manage two campaigns at once. 

Why sync your campaigns to Microsoft?

Microsoft Advertising may not have the biggest share of the global search market. But like most underdogs, it shouldn’t be overlooked. 

Ignoring Microsoft is like owning a gas station and not offering diesel because you already sell petrol. 

Put plainly, Microsoft reaches 63 million users that Google doesn’t, giving you access to a whole new audience that would have just been forgotten about. What’s more, because there’s less competition, you’ll also get cheaper clicks, giving you a better return on your investment. 

And in case you think that’s too good to be true, we ran these tests on our own campaigns. Overall, we found that: 

• Cost Per Click on Google was an average of £5.15 compared to Microsoft’s £1.17.
• Comparing 44 randomly selected keywords, the average CPC for Google is £11.76 while Microsoft is £2.06.

With AdSync by Adzooma, you get access to these amazing results and cost savings without having to manually manage your Microsoft campaigns. 

New to Microsoft? Get $125 free ad spend. 

We’re proud to offer all new customers $125 in extra advertising when you spend $25.

That’s $150 of advertising, for $25.

To claim your free spend, you just need to: 

1. Sign up to Microsoft using this link
2. Add $25 of credit to your account 

Once done, you’ll have $150 of spend to use on your first Microsoft campaigns. And with AdSync by Adzooma, you’ll be able to synchronize your Google campaigns over for hands-free campaign management. 

Turn on Adzooma Adsync today

Ready to double your advertising success? 

Just click on the AdSync banner from your accounts page. Then, just follow the 4 step instructions to get your Adsync setup and running. 

During this setup, you’ll select which campaigns you want to sync and any adjustments in your budget or bids. If you missed a campaign or want to link to more than one account, just follow the same process as many times as you need. There’s no limit. 

Once done, just sit back and manage your campaigns as normal. We’ll copy all the changes over and ensure your Microsoft campaigns are running as smoothly as your Google ones.

And remember, if you’re new to Microsoft Advertising, you can get $125 of free advertising spend by signing up today. 

With all the keyword research, copy creation and manually building out ad groups, you’re looking at 4 hours, or even longer. Well, not anymore. 

With Adzooma’s new feature, the Proposal Builder, the whole process will take seconds with their automatic campaign builder and onboarding tool. That’s a saving of half a day per client. 

Onboard new clients in seconds with the Proposal Builder

The Proposal Builder is Adzooma’s new feature that will change the way agencies and freelancers onboard clients and build campaigns. Instead of manually inputting and building all the elements yourself, our system will automatically build campaigns for you. 

• You provide us with a few client details, such as their name, website, location and industry. 
• We’ll instantly create ready to publish Google Search, Google Display or Microsoft Display campaigns. 

Your new campaign will include: 

• Call and Site Link Extensions, automatically pulled from your client’s website. 
• A professionally built campaign, with filled out ad groups, keywords, adverts and negative keywords. 
• Advert previews to see the finished result of your campaign. 

Want to add your personal touch? No problem. You can edit or add to any part of the campaign with a click of a button.  The whole process is so quick, you can create complete campaigns while on an introductory phone call. 

It’s everything you need to scale your business and make low-spend clients profitable. 

Include your own fees for accurate projections 

The Proposal Builder doesn’t just create new client campaigns. It also shows you the projected results for the campaign depending on the budget that you set. 

What’s better, you can also set your own fees as part of this calculator, including both fixed amounts and variable rates. You’ll see how many clicks and impressions your clients will get for their spend, with a breakdown of their advertising budget and fees. 

Advertising account creation for your newest clients 

If your client is ready to go, you can set the campaign live in a single click by hitting the ‘Publish’ button. 

If they don’t have an advertising account, you can make one inside of Adzooma – and their first campaign will already be live and waiting.

What’s more, you can also manage their account using Adzooma’s free advertising platform for results-driven optimization suggestions, time-saving automated rules and more. Create in seconds, publish in a click and manage weekly in Adzooma. 

Unlimited draft campaigns in every plan 

With every Proposal Builder subscription, you’ll get unlimited draft proposals for free. That means you can add as many prospective clients and campaigns that you want. 

Use it as part of your lead generation, to prospect new clients or even create show existing clients the success they could be having on another PPC channel. Create as many as you want – our plans are based on how many campaigns you want to publish. 

Need something bespoke? Custom plans are available on request. Speak to our team to build your perfect solution. 

Ready to upgrade? 

Just log into your Adzooma account and click ‘Proposal Builder’ from the top navigation bar to choose your plan. 

Or, head to billing in your right hand menu to manage the Proposal Builder and Adzooma Plus plans in one place. 

Adzooma Plus is your new growth partner

Adzooma Plus is more than just an add-on or paid platform. It’s your new growth partner to help take your business to the next level. 

It comes with all the free Adzooma Essentials platform features, PLUS more advanced tools to help you get found online, boost your reputation, convert more visitors into customers, and improve your ad campaigns.

Sound good? Let’s take a deeper look.

Increase your online visibility

The first and fastest step to attracting new customers is immediately boosting your online presence and visibility. This ensures you’re seen everywhere your customers are searching, while you move on to the next steps in your journey. With Adzooma Plus, you’ll get access to the following features:

Listings Management

Publish, update and manage your business listing on 50+ popular platforms including Google, Facebook, Instagram, Bing, and many more. Adzooma scans these platforms and identifies if your business information such as your location, phone number, and website, is correct, missing, or incomplete. 

Correctly published & updated details help verify your location and automatically rank your business higher within search queries resulting in increased visibility, clicks, and traffic, both online and through the door.

Reviews Management

Automatically get all of your reviews from platforms like Google, Tripadvisor and Facebook, in a single dashboard where you can easily respond, compare and monitor, all in seconds. 

Customer reviews help you build trust and credibility, and with the vast majority of consumers now basing their buying decisions on reviews, it’s important to know what others are saying about you, so you can act on it quickly. 

SEO Performance Report

With Adzooma’s SEO Report you can analyze your website in just 60 seconds. You’ll get a fully detailed breakdown of your performance across 4 key areas: your keyword performance, onsite SEO, page speed, and backlinks. 

The SEO Performance Report explains why a score is bad and more importantly, how you can improve it with full, easy-to-understand explanations, so no SEO experience is needed. What’s more, you can add your competitor’s URL to measure your performance against theirs and find opportunities to gain an advantage with our keyword gap analysis.

Save time and optimize your ad performance

With Adzooma Plus get access to the below premium paid ad optimization and automation tools so that you can run professional advertising campaigns in just minutes per day:

Automation templates

Adzooma Automation allows you to create custom rules and alerts to manage your PPC campaigns, it’s a hands-free way of making sure your accounts are always performing at their best. You can choose from over 80 of our pre-made automation templates created by industry experts such as pausing non-converting keywords, setting your minimum click-through rate, or pausing poor-performing ads, to name a few. Or, create a rule from scratch with our intelligent controls and advanced features. 

Clever Campaigns

Build and launch successful Google campaigns without the need to research keywords, write ads, or configure campaign settings. Using just basic business information, Adzooma creates impactful Google search campaigns dynamically by customizing keywords and ad copy to provide highly relevant and personalized campaigns and adverts that your audience will love – and in a fraction of the time it would usually take!

Advanced Optimizations

Maximize your paid ads performance with exclusive bid adjustment and landing page opportunities. 

1. Bid adjustments

Bid adjustment opportunities maximize your budget by increasing or decreasing your bids by a certain percentage depending on conditions such as your customer’s age range, gender or device.  

For example, Calm Waters Spa is running campaigns for a day getaway package. Our system analyzes this campaign and finds that female customers click on the ads and book far more often than men. So, Adzooma might recommend a bid adjustment of 20% on female users. If your current bid for this campaign is £1.00, the bid adjustment would increase this price by 20%, changing the final bid for female customers to £1.20 instead. 

Bid adjustments don’t affect your overall budget. Instead, they prioritize certain users over others, helping to get you more sales and clicks for your budget.

2. Landing Page Opportunities

Getting people to click on your advert is only half of the battle. When they land on your landing page, they still need to take action whether it’s buying a product, booking a call or signing up for a newsletter. Our landing page opportunities are designed to help you increase such conversions by checking for factors such as:

• Page speed: This opportunity fires when your landing page speed load time is low. Slow websites can kill sales, the longer it takes to load, the more customers you’ll lose. 
• Landing page 404: When your site is down, this opportunity will fire. Adzooma checks this frequently and checks the data out too. It tracks when the site was down and how long it was down
• Improve Landing Page Mobile UX: While everything might be working well on desktop computers, your mobile customers might be getting a poor experience. This opportunity will fire in that case. 

Level up your skills

With Adzooma Plus you’ll be able to improve your online marketing skills with complete access to the Adzooma Academy. We’ve handpicked and curated the best courses in the industry, giving you the information to master any area of digital marketing while offering practical, actionable advice that you can turn into success. 

Dedicated account management to help you grow

You’ll also have an account manager for complete support throughout your entire journey. Get support, knowledge, and guidance from a dedicated expert who understands how to use Adzooma to grow your business.

How much does Adzooma Plus cost?

Adzooma Plus costs £69 + VAT per month or £499 per year. That gives you a saving of £329 if you pay annually. 

There are no hidden charges or extras and all new features and improvements will be included in your package. If you change your mind, you can cancel your subscription at any time. 

How do I get Adzooma Plus?

Just log into your Adzooma account and click ‘Upgrade Today’ on your home screen and start using Plus features immediately, or, if you haven’t got an account yet, you can create one here.

We thank you for making Adzooma the platform it is today.

What we had to say

The Microsoft Global Awards “aim to recognise and reward outstanding, creative, and passionate work by search advertising individuals, teams, agencies, channel and technology partners working with Microsoft Advertising.”

After winning the Rising Star of the Year award at the Europe, the Middle East and Africa Microsoft Awards in February against the likes of the fantastic Happy Idiots and Mabo Media, we were put forward to the global award ceremony alongside the winners from the Americas and Asia Pacific.

This saw us line up alongside more of Microsoft’s amazing strategic partners in what must have been a really difficult decision for the judges. We’re massive fans of the work they do, so to win this award while up against great businesses like those makes this achievement even sweeter.

Speaking on the triumph, here’s what some of our staff had to say:

“Over the last year there have been so many different businesses popping up online so the timing of this burgeoning relationship with Microsoft couldn’t have been better for us in helping to serve these businesses in such a meaningful way at such a time of need.”

Puneet Vaghela, Head of Innovation

“One of the key areas today is that digital marketing and online advertising is more important than ever, especially in the current situation. We’ve experienced a global pandemic and it’s become more important for businesses to move online. For a lot of people that’s complicated and challenging as they’re not digital marketers but to succeed their business needs to be online. At Adzooma we make it easier for businesses by working with global partners like Microsoft.”

Robert Wass, Director & Co-Founder

“We’ve got a very good team structure and everyone is very supportive at the company. When we’ve worked with Microsoft they’ve been the same, indeed, it’s almost like they’re an extension of our company in many ways. It’s been a great experience to work alongside them.“

Jaye Bonser, Social Media Executive

“I’ve had the pleasure of working very closely with Microsoft over the past 18 months and it’s been a real pleasure. We’re both very similar in the way we approach things and I think that’s probably one of the reasons why we won this award today. I can’t wait to see what the future holds.”

Thomas Hampson, CTO & Founder

“Microsoft has always been at the forefront of putting customers and clients first and helping people to grow their business. Together with Adzooma, it’s a very similar strategy and I think there is a strong alignment. If anything it re-enforces the decision making process for customers to come and work with Adzooma and Microsoft.”

Warren Jacobs, Director & Partner

“We take these global awards really seriously. Microsoft are obviously a fantastic partner and company to be working with and we really aim as a company to succeed and win for our customers.” 

Dave Sharpe, CEO & Founder

What’s next

It’s great to be recognised by such an esteemed company like Microsoft for what we do. But it’s what comes next that really matters. 

Over the past year since going free, thousands of businesses have transformed their paid advertising campaigns through Adzooma and taken their Microsoft, Google and Facebook ads to new heights.

We’ve seen the freelancer Phillip Bacon increase conversions by 200% for an 1100% ROAS through the platform. We’ve helped Joshua Medina the CEO of an ecommerce business get set up on Microsoft and save a day a week managing his ads. We’ve streamlined agency owner Phil Byrne’s business workflow. And so much more.

Going forward, that commitment won’t change. At Adzooma we are focused on creating a product that will continue to support businesses and the digital marketing community through the toughest of times, and hopefully soon enough, the good times too.

Working alongside you our users is how we’ll make this happen. Your loyalty and support has been crucial in helping us become the platform we are today and without you none of this would be possible. 

It’s your feedback and openness to collaboration that makes Adzooma. You help to guide us on in our journey. You help shape our roadmap. 

And in 2021, we only want to bring that relationship closer together. 

Because together we thrive.

And it’s fair to say we’ve done that. After all, Adzooma is the best free PPC platform on the market, packed with time-saving features, one-click optimisations and the fastest and most intelligent automation system on the market.

This is just the beginning. We’re going to continue to upgrade and innovate our PPC offering and expand our horizons. Today, we’re taking our first step into the wider digital marketing world with the launch of a brand new SEO Performance Report. 

Why SEO? 

Let’s take a step back to basics: 

• PPC: Pay-per-click advertising.
• SEO: Search engine optimization. 

PPC and SEO are different sides of the same marketing coin. Both strategies will get your business noticed on search engines at the right moment. PPC gives an instant, paid-for results, while SEO is the slower, ‘free’ option. 

But PPC and SEO aren’t in competition with each other. They work together, hand-in-hand. 

• If keywords are getting a lot of clicks for your PPC campaigns, it shows what users might engage with the most for your organic strategy. 
• Similarly, if your pages are ranking for particular keywords, you can set up PPC campaigns to capitalize on that success.
• SEO optimised pages help improve your Quality Score, helping your PPC campaigns rank higher.

That’s why we’ve chosen SEO as the first report and marketing feature to be included in the Adzooma platform. It’s a massive step for us and wouldn’t have been possible without our partnership with Hike SEO.

Want to brush up your SEO knowledge? Check out this guide to SEO and how it works here.

The new SEO Performance Report 

Adzooma’s SEO Performance report will analyse your website and identify immediate actions you can take to improve. 

Like our PPC Performance Report, you’ll get an overall score out of 100. The closer to 100 you are, the better optimised your website is. You’ll then get a more detailed breakdown of your performance into 4 key areas. 

1. Keyword performance 

This section will show where your website ranks for selected keywords, as well as other phrases that you might not be aware of. It will tell you information such as: 

• How many keywords you rank #1 for 
• How many of your keywords rank in the Top 3 and Top 10
• The total number of keywords your website ranks for
• An estimate of your monthly traffic
• The top 25 keywords that you rank for

The section is designed to be an overview of where you’re at now. It’s designed to give you an insight on what keywords are resonating with your audience – and site content that you can improve. After all, the higher you rank, the more traffic you’re likely to get.

In addition, this section might also spark some ideas for your PPC campaigns, which you can action and build straight away in Adzooma Management. 

2. Onsite SEO

This is where the SEO Performance Report starts to get into the more technical side of SEO with recommendations to optimise specific pages on your website. Don’t worry though, every suggestion is fully explained with easy changes that you can action straight away. 

This section will check factors such as: 

• Title tags, which summarise to the search engines what the page is about and entice customers to click on your link on the results page. 
• Meta descriptions, which is the copy that search engines use to describe your page in the results. 
• Redirects, which ensure that users land on the right page and don’t see 404 errors if the content has been moved or removed from your website. 
• Noindex tags, which tell search engines to ignore a page and prevents it from appearing in the results. 
• And much more. 

For every recommendation, we’ll tell you exactly why it’s been suggested, what it does and how you can implement the change straight away. You don’t need to know the ins and outs of SEO to achieve results here.

Find more onsite SEO tips in this guide to improving on-page and off-page SEO.

3. Page Speed 

As the name suggests, this section checks the page speed of your website. Slow website’s lower user experience, meaning that search engines will penalise your website and lower your rankings. 

Page speed isn’t just important for SEO though. The longer a page takes to load, the more users you’ll lose. That means less conversions, less sales and less profit. 

This section won’t just test the speed of your website, but also list actions you can take to prevent anything slowing down your website.

4. Backlinks 

Backlinks are the bread and butter of the SEO world. They are links from another website to yours, which act as a vote of confidence in the eyes of search engines. If another high-quality website is linking to yours, search engines see it as a personal recommendation that your website is trustworthy, significantly impacting your rankings. 

In this section, you’ll see: 

• The total number of backlinks your website has
• The number of websites that link to your website
• Your website authority, which is a score out of 10 to measure the quality & quantity of backlinks to your website

You’ll also see a list of some of your backlinks, showing what pages people are linking to. This information is an essential part of forming a backlink strategy. 

Compare your performance to your competitors 

The SEO Performance Report gives you the option to add a competitor’s URL to your report, allowing you to measure your performance against theirs. See areas that you’re doing well, where they might be taking the lead and identity opportunities to improve. 

Our keyword gap analysis is a great competitive feature of the SEO Performance Report. Located in the Keyword Performance section, this will show you: 

• The keywords that you are ranking for, and your competitor’s aren’t. 
• The keywords you both rank for and the relative positions. 
• The keywords your competitors are ranking for, and you aren’t.  

Use it to add keywords into your strategy that you might be missing out on, or start building PPC campaigns based on the keywords that they’re missing out on. 

You might want to also look at our guide for keyword ranking for extra tips and advice. 

How to get your SEO Performance Report

The basic SEO Performance Report is free to access for all Adzooma users. 

Just login to your account and click Reports at the top. Then, click the SEO Performance Report from the list to get started. 

To run the report, you’ll have to enter your own URL (and your competitor’s URL to run a competitors report) and click ‘Run Report’. Your results and recommendations will start loading below.

You can run a maximum of 3 reports per week, which will be shown at the top of the page. If you’re looking for more, you can upgrade this to 100 reports a week as an exclusive Adzooma add-on. Upgrading your SEO Report will also unlock: 

• 100 keywords analysed, instead of 25. 
• Full historical reporting, instead of the past 30 days. 
• The ability to download your report as a PDF, or share to clients in a click.  

All details about this add-on can be found inside the Adzooma platform. For now, try the basic version for free to get a taste of what this report can offer. 

Not an Adzooma user? 

You’ll need to sign up and connect your advertising accounts to access this feature. This is completely free and gives you access to a whole suite of additional reports, intelligent automation rules that run every 30 minutes, one-click optimizations and so much more. 

Create your free account here.