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!

Further research into the type of content searched for suggests that “how to” queries are favoured, with search volumes up to 10 times larger than Google’s. However it’s used, there’s no doubting the inexorable influence of TikTok – surpassing 1.5 billion users in 2024.

So, how can your brand use TikTok search to reach its target audience? Learn more about the famous algorithm and how to get more views on TikTok.

What is SEO on TikTok?

Just like search engine optimisation for Bing or Google, your TikTok SEO strategy should always have your users’ search intent in mind. Rather than the traditional SERPs (search engine results pages), TikTok videos are displayed on the ‘For You page’ (also known as FYP). 

The TikTok ranking algorithm measures user interactions on these videos, including number of views and time spent watching. There are multiple ranking factors that will help to push your content in front of the right people – including trending hashtags, high-quality video content and influencer partnerships.

What counts as a TikTok view?

The fundamental difference between TikTok content views and other platforms is how it’s measured. For example, on a YouTube video, a single ‘view’ is only logged if somebody has viewed it for 30 seconds or more. On Facebook, this value is lower at just three seconds.

Appealing to the short-term nature of its content, the TikTok search engine counts all views. This means that your viewing figures will go up the second somebody lands on your content. It also means that ‘dwell time’ is not the only thing that makes your videos rank. As such, TikTok users need to think about other ways to persuade the algorithm that their videos offer relevant content.

How TikTok SEO works

The TikTok algorithm works in mysterious ways. Views in isolation won’t make your content go viral. Instead, you’ll need to consider positive user interactions such as likes, comments, shares and account follows. 

Dwell time is indeed a factor – the platform will take note if your videos are watched to the end and even re-watched. It will then serve similar content on a user’s ‘FYP’. This gives your TikTok account more chance of showing up, though it could also rank your competitors.

The difference between search engine optimisation and TikTok SEO

Your marketing strategy should follow some of the same principles as traditional SEO. For example, informational search queries are more likely to return ‘how-to’ videos. You’ll need to carry out TikTok keyword research, thinking about how long-tail keywords could translate into popular hashtags.

Transactional searches, meanwhile, may be more reliant on trending topics – for example, if a key influencer has just launched a new product range.

Fundamentally, while there are overlaps between Google and TikTok, there are differences. SEO ranking factors for TikTok include:

• Optimised, relevant hashtags
• User interactions such as follows and shares
• Audio and video quality considerations
• Content length and scheduling regularity.

Why optimise content for TikTok?

Producing relevant, engaging content for TikTok will not only grow your brand; it also offers monetisation opportunities. In August 2020, the TikTok Creator Fund was launched. According to the TikTok app, the fund helps creators “realise additional earnings that help reward the care and dedication they put into creatively connecting with an audience that’s inspired by their ideas.”

In monetary terms, you can expect to make between $0.02 and $0.04 (£0.016 and £0.032) per thousand views, or CPM. With these TikTok SEO tips, you can get more eyeballs on your content and grow your brand. Monetising your content is just a bonus.

How to get more views on TikTok

The algorithm made some interesting updates in 2022, namely to its search bar features. Users can now highlight on-screen text or caption content when they see a relevant keyword. TikTok will automatically create a clickable link, taking viewers through to related topics.

This puts more emphasis on creators to use relevant keywords in their captions and content. But it’s not the only way:

Think about your audience – what’s on their ‘For You’ page?

This method follows the fundamentals of all marketing, particularly SEO. Think about exactly who your user is – let’s say they’re an avid female gym-goer in their mid-20s. Transactional keywords might be shorter, such as the products they’re buying. Use hashtags like #gymleggings #yogapants #sportsbra etc.

Then consider the questions they might ask. “How can I gain muscle?” “How often do I need to stretch?” This can inform your hashtag strategy and your video content. TikTok video series work well, keeping users engaged with a single topic and then following it up with further answers to questions.

Jump on trending TikTok hashtags

Short-term boosts in sales based on trends are not to be sniffed at. You can use the ‘Discover’ page to browse videos and identify popular topics and hashtags. Include these in your video information to help your content show up in the search bar.

Don’t forget that hashtags aren’t the only thing that can trend. Phrases like #TikTokMadeMeDoIt showcase what products, movies or celebrities are hot in popular culture. These may inform memes, which you can recreate to align with your product or service. There are also TikTok challenges – a fun, light-hearted way to jump on whatever’s got users creating, contributing and interacting.

Keep your content under 30 seconds

There’s no hard and fast rule for optimum TikTok video content length – though the upper limit has now been extended to 10 minutes. This has come a long way since the early days of the platform when clips were limited to just 15 seconds. 

While you’ve got the freedom to make almost mini-movies with 10-minute content, you’re likely to see users dropping off. Between March and August 2023, the most popular TikTok videos averaged 34 seconds – suggesting that users are ready to move on long before 10 minutes.

The secret is to get your message across within this time and keep viewers hooked. How? Pique their curiosity by presenting the problem quickly. (Even better if this ties into what they’re searching for!) Use a storytelling format – problem, method, resolution – ideally with humour and trending content.

Post your content at the right times

It’s not only a case of what content you create, but when. Of course, you don’t need to hit publish as soon as you create it. You can even use scheduling tools to make content in bulk. You will find hundreds of articles on what the best times to publish on TikTok are, but the reality is more nuanced. 

For example, perhaps you’re an online retailer that ships globally. (If so, it’s also wise to look at language preferences and your account settings!) Some users may interact in different time zones. Another factor to think about is your industry. If you’re in B2B, for example, are your customers more likely to buy during the 9 to 5, or if you’re in B2C, are they more likely to engage on a weekend?

You can look at your analytics dashboard to find out more. This will give you three things:

1. A broad overview of your general video views, profile views, follower growth and overall user interactions
2. Content information such as total likes, average watch time, comments and shares
3. Follower insights such as where your audiences are based and what time of day they interact. This one is particularly important for scheduling.

Use trending sounds and audio effects

TikTok challenges and memes are one thing, but there are also sound effects. Again, head to the ‘Discover’ page to look for trending sounds. You can add these to your video by selecting the sound from the library. 

If a user likes a particular song or sound, they can click through to it on the video. This will show them other videos that are using this audio, including yours.

Capitalise on the ‘how to’ using the comment section

More and more users are turning to TikTok to find quick, accessible information on how to do things. If you’re stuck for content ideas, head to your comment section. Here, users may ask questions about your videos. You can answer their queries directly – which may prompt a follow – or you can go the extra mile.

Think about making a video that answers the user’s question. You can respond to their query right there in the comment section with a video. This will link the user through to your new content, keeping them informed and those algorithms happy. After all, TikTok rewards quality, but it also rewards quantity.

Merge your videos by ‘stitching’

‘Stitching’ video content is ideal for collaborating with others or even promoting your existing content. It involves playing two videos side by side in a split-screen fashion. You can use it to compare two of your posts or work with a partner to make fun and interactive content.

For example, some people might sing along to another clip or dub over pre-existing videos with their own dialogue. Others might use this tool to compare two products. It’s essentially twice the content in the same viewing pane – great for those time-poor users.

Cross-promote your TikTok content on other platforms

Who says your videos have to exist on one platform only? While TikTok may be separate from other social networks like Meta, its content can still be shared. You can take your TikTok content and share it again on Instagram Reels or YouTube Shorts. (Don’t forget, YouTube is still considered a highly influential search engine.)

It will feature the TikTok logo and your username, inviting viewers to follow you on your account. This essentially gives your videos more longevity – reaching new users on different platforms. You can even branch out into others like LinkedIn or X. Simply share a link and watch your views grow.

Partner with influencers

Influencers are ideal for keeping your ‘dwell time’ high – ensuring more users reach the end of your video. Today, TikTok influencers are stars in their own right, with high followings that encourage more users to interact and convert. 

To find the right influencers, follow these steps:

1. Look at your current followers. Analyse their user activity and find out more about the kind of accounts they’re following. To make this faster, you can also use the influencer management platform Heepsy.
2. Engage with your influencers. Once you’ve found a relevant TikTok star, reach out to them. Ask them what they think of your product. If they would have bought it anyway, they’re far more likely to promote it authentically.
3. Negotiate achievable goals. This starts with ensuring your chosen influencer’s followers are real and not just bots. Once you’ve confirmed this, discuss how they could help. Is it a how-to video, product demo or channel takeover?

Like all marketing, there may be some trial and error with this – which it’s why it’s so important to do your research. Make sure your influencer has the same values you do and watch out for shady tactics, such as promoting unethical products.

Don’t compromise on video quality

You may feel under pressure to create often, but this should not be at the expense of quality! Modern devices mean we have more access than ever to user-friendly content creation tools. The TikTok algorithm prioritises high-quality content – that is, using good lighting and crisp audio.

You should also follow the right framing conventions. TikTok recommends video dimensions of 1080 x 1920 pixels with an aspect ratio of 9:16. Remember that most people will be viewing these portrait-mode on a mobile, so ensure there’s no way that content can be clipped or captions missing.

Speaking of captions, never scrimp on these. Keep them below 125 characters (essential for scheduling tools) and use up to three relevant hashtags, leading with the most important information first.

Get started with TikTok Advertising

While TikTok’s algorithm opens up exciting ways for brands to reach younger audiences, maximizing visibility on the platform still requires a strong strategy. That’s where Adzooma’s parent company, ClickTech, can make a difference. With industry-leading expertise, ClickTech is now a TikTok Partner, offering brands resources to leverage TikTok’s unique advertising potential. Visit our partner page to find out more and get in touch, to start your TikTok advertising journey!

This article was written for Adzooma by CTI Digitial.

To achieve better results, improving your display ad’s CTR is key. In this article, we’ll discuss five practical, data-driven strategies that can help you overcome low CTR, enhance ad engagement, and ultimately improve the overall performance of your display campaigns. 

1. Refine Your Audience Targeting

One of the most critical factors influencing display ad CTR is how well you’re targeting your audience. Even the most beautifully designed ad will fall flat if it’s shown to the wrong people. Therefore, refining your audience targeting is essential.

a. Use Behavioural Targeting

Behavioural targeting involves showing ads to people based on their past browsing behaviour. This could include individuals who have visited your website or searched for products or services similar to what you’re offering. By leveraging behavioural data, you can ensure your ads reach people who are more likely to be interested in your products, which in turn can increase CTR.

b. Utilise Lookalike Audiences

Creating lookalike audiences is an effective way to refine targeting and expand your reach. These are groups of new users who share similar characteristics, behaviours, or interests with your existing customers. By tapping into lookalike audiences, you can increase the likelihood of engagement because you’re targeting individuals who are more likely to respond to your ads, based on similarities to those who have already shown interest in your products or services. This approach can help you reach a wider, yet still relevant, audience and improve overall campaign performance.

c. Implement Retargeting

Retargeting is a powerful method that reminds people of your product after they’ve interacted with your brand. By targeting users who have already visited your website or added products to their cart but didn’t complete the purchase, you’re able to push them further down the conversion funnel. Ads that retarget users have been shown to increase CTR by up to 10 times compared to standard display ads.

2. Improve Ad Design and Copy

The design and copy of your ad are crucial elements in improving CTR. People are naturally drawn to visually appealing content, and a well-crafted message can spark curiosity or a desire to click. Here are a few ways to improve your ad design and copy:

a. Keep It Simple but Eye-Catching

A common mistake advertisers make is overcrowding their ads with too much text or too many images. Simplicity is key in display ads. A clean, minimal design allows your message to stand out and grab attention quickly, which is important since users tend to scroll or browse quickly. Bold colours, strong contrast, and high-quality images can help your ad stand out from the surrounding content.

b. Focus on a Strong Call to Action (CTA)

Your call to action is the most important part of your ad copy. It tells users what you want them to do. An effective CTA should be short, actionable, and clear. Use verbs that instill a sense of urgency, such as “Shop Now,” “Learn More,” or “Get Started.” Additionally, the CTA button should be visually distinct from the rest of the ad to draw immediate attention.

c. Use Dynamic Ads

Dynamic ads automatically adjust their content based on user behavior and preferences. These ads show personalized products or services to each user, improving relevance and, therefore, increasing the likelihood of a click. For example, if someone has recently browsed a specific product on your site, your ad can display that product to them, making the ad much more tailored and engaging.

3. Maximise Ad Placement and Contextual Targeting

Where your ads appear can greatly influence their CTR. The wrong placement can result in your ads being ignored, while strategic placements can drive higher engagement. In addition to this, contextual targeting helps ensure your ads are seen in environments where they make sense and are more likely to resonate with the audience.

a. Optimise for Mobile and Desktop

Display ads should be optimised for both mobile and desktop users. Ensure your ad format fits different screen sizes without losing clarity. Given that mobile traffic continues to grow, ads that aren’t optimised for mobile can severely limit your potential CTR. Create responsive ads that adjust depending on the device used to access the content, improving visibility and engagement across all platforms.

b. Contextual Targeting

Contextual targeting allows you to place your ads on websites or pages that are relevant to your product or service. For instance, if you’re selling fitness equipment, you’d want your ads to appear on health and wellness blogs or forums. This improves the relevance of your ads, as users who are consuming related content are more likely to be interested in your offerings.

c. Select High-Performance Ad Networks

Not all ad networks perform equally, so it’s important to track and analyse which ones deliver higher CTR and engagement for your audience. Programmatic platforms like ClickAds give you access to a wide range of premium sites, including AOL, Business Insider, BuzzFeed, CBS News, Daily Mail, and SkySports. Monitoring your performance regularly ensures that your budget is allocated to the networks that provide the best results for your campaigns.

4. Test Ad Formats and Creative Variations

Ad fatigue can set in when users see the same ads repeatedly, leading to declining CTR. To combat this, it’s essential to continuously test different ad formats and creative variations.

a. Experiment with Different Formats

Display ads come in various formats, including banner ads, video ads, carousel ads, and interactive ads. Some formats may perform better depending on the platform and audience you’re targeting. For instance, video ads often yield higher engagement rates because they’re more dynamic and can convey more information in a short time. However, banner ads can be effective if they’re placed in high-visibility locations on a webpage. Experimenting with different formats can give you a better understanding of what works best for your audience.

b. Rotate Creative Assets

Regularly refreshing your ad creative can prevent ad fatigue. Even if your ad has performed well, showing the same design for too long can lead to users tuning out. By rotating your creative assets, you maintain freshness and keep users engaged. Try changing up visuals, colours, and CTAs to see what resonates.

c. Interactive and Rich Media Ads

Interactive ads that allow users to engage with the content (e.g., swiping through carousels, clicking on expandable banners, or watching interactive videos) can dramatically increase engagement. Rich media ads, which include images, videos, and audio, offer a more immersive experience and can generate higher CTR compared to static ads. By making your ads more interactive, you’re giving users a reason to engage, leading to more clicks.

5. Analyse and Optimise Performance

Finally, continuous analysis and optimisation are vital to improving CTR. Without reviewing performance data, you won’t know which strategies are working or where you need to adjust. Make data-driven decisions to refine your campaigns over time.

a. Monitor Key Metrics

Keep a close eye on metrics like CTR, conversion rate, bounce rate, and return on ad spend (ROAS). By monitoring these metrics, you can assess whether your changes are leading to improved performance. Tools like Google Analytics, Facebook Insights, and third-party platforms like SEMrush or Ahrefs can provide detailed insights into user behaviour and ad performance.

b. Conduct A/B Testing

A/B testing should be a regular part of your optimisation process. Whether it’s testing different ad designs, CTAs, or audiences, A/B testing allows you to systematically determine what works best. Run two versions of the same ad with small differences, such as headline or image variations, and compare the results to see which version performs better.

c. Optimise Underperforming Ads

Don’t hesitate to pause or update ads that are underperforming. If a particular ad or audience isn’t delivering the desired results, it’s time to reevaluate. Review the ad’s placement, format, creative, and targeting to identify where improvements can be made. Often, small tweaks can have a significant impact on performance.

d. Frequency Cap Adjustment

Sometimes, low CTR can be attributed to ad fatigue, where users have seen your ad too often. Adjusting the frequency cap (the number of times a user is shown your ad) can help. Reducing the frequency cap ensures your ad remains fresh and avoids overwhelming users, which can lead to higher CTR.

A Quick Summary

Improving low display ad CTR is a multifaceted challenge, but with the right strategies in place, you can significantly boost your ad engagement. By refining audience targeting, optimising ad design, experimenting with different formats, focusing on contextual relevance, and continually analysing performance, you can create ads that capture attention, engage users, and drive more clicks. 

Whether you’re running a small business or managing large-scale campaigns, these five strategies offer practical steps that can transform your display advertising efforts, leading to better engagement, improved CTR, and, ultimately, more conversions.

Enhance Your Advertising Strategy 

If you’re looking to improve your advertising, our sister brand ClickAds.ai offers an easy way to access programmatic advertising. With our self-serve platform, you can manage campaigns efficiently and reach your audience across display, video, connected TV, and digital out-of-home. Click here to learn more about how programmatic advertising can support your digital strategy.

What Are Microsoft Multimedia Ads?

Multimedia Ads (MMAs) are large, visually engaging ad formats that show up prominently on the top right-hand side of Bing’s search engine results pages (SERPs). Unlike standard text ads, these ads combine striking images with clear text overlays, making them much more eye-catching. This visual style is meant to grab attention quickly, using the power of imagery to connect with users right away.

Key Benefits of Multimedia Ads

1. Increased SERP Visibility

One of the major advantages of MMAs is the ability to show up alongside your existing search ad, giving your brand multiple positions in a single auction. Typically, advertisers can only occupy more than one spot if they’re running both Shopping and Search ads. MMAs break this mould, allowing advertisers to secure additional real estate on the SERP, which can significantly enhance visibility. This dual placement means your brand can dominate the page and capture more attention from potential customers.

2. The Power of Visual Appeal

Humans process visual content far faster than text – up to 60,000 times faster, according to studies. MMAs tap into this by using compelling images to make an instant connection with the audience. With bold visuals, you can convey your message quickly and effectively, even before a user reads the accompanying text. This makes MMAs particularly useful for advertisers looking to create high-impact, memorable campaigns.

3. Cost-Effective and Easy to Set Up

One of the most appealing aspects of MMAs is that they cost the same per click as other ad formats, the only additional cost is a minimum 40% bid increase to ensure the ad appears at the top of Page 1. Setting up an MMA is also simple, requiring just a few minutes. Advertisers can even repurpose existing assets from image extensions, meaning you don’t need to create entirely new visuals to get started.

How to Set Up Multimedia Ads

Setting up a Multimedia Ad is a straightforward process. Here’s a step-by-step guide to ensure you make the most of this format:

1. Choose a High-Quality Image

The image is the focal point of your MMA, so it’s essential to select one that represents your product or service effectively. High-quality, relevant images can significantly boost the ad’s impact. For example, a hotel advertising London rooms could use an aerial view of iconic landmarks to capture travellers’ attention. Always opt for high-resolution images, as grainy or pixelated visuals can undermine your brand’s credibility.

2. Add Clear, Actionable Text
The text overlay is your chance to reinforce the message behind the image. Keep it concise and focused on driving action. Use clear calls-to-action like “Free Delivery” or “Limited Time Offer,” and ensure that your image doesn’t have any text on it, otherwise the overlay will be hard to read.

3. Preview and Publish
Microsoft Advertising allows you to preview your ad before it goes live. This step is crucial to ensure that the image and text work together seamlessly and that your messaging is clear. Once everything looks good, publish your ad and start benefiting from this impactful ad format.

Final Thoughts

Microsoft Advertising Multimedia Ads offer advertisers an effective way to improve their presence on Bing’s SERPs. By combining impactful visuals with clear, actionable text, MMAs help brands capture more attention and stand out in search results. Their visually engaging format can increase user interaction and make them a valuable tool for enhancing brand awareness and engagement. With minimal setup time, cost-effective performance, and the potential to drive better results, MMAs provide advertisers with a great opportunity to make a stronger impact in their campaigns.

This article will guide you through optimising your product titles, descriptions, and images, avoiding duplicates, and making sure all product attributes are correctly populated to maximise your campaign performance.

1. Product Titles

Product titles are one of the most critical factors in determining the relevance of your ads. For instance, if you’re selling men’s lightweight black running shoes and only label them “black shoes,” your ad won’t appear in many relevant searches. Shoppers search for specifics, like “red trail-running shoes” or “road racing trainers,” so including as much detail as possible is essential.

Even though you don’t bid on keywords in shopping campaigns, you can still run a search terms report to see which queries triggered your ads. For example, if someone searches for “men’s green parka” and your product title is simply “down parka,” your ad is unlikely to perform well. To optimise titles, follow a format like brand + product name + product type + gender + size + colour, as this reflects buyer behaviour and priorities when searching. 

Avoid using promotional text like “free shipping” in titles, as this can be added through extensions and labels rather than in your product titles. As your product feed takes the place of target keywords, ensure your product titles are detailed enough to clearly indicate the exact product you are promoting, in the same way you’d ensure target keywords are tightly themed.  

2. Product Descriptions

Product descriptions should expand on the information in the title and reinforce the details most relevant to users. For example, if you’re selling yellow spotty hats, place “yellow spotty hat” at the start of the description, rather than generic terms like “hat, cute, outdoor.” People are searching for specifics, so front-load the description with key details to improve ad relevance.

It’s also important to ensure descriptions match the product details on your landing page. For example, for women’s shoes, the description should include features such as material, size, and colour. Make sure there are no errors like HTML tags or duplicate words, as these can reduce the quality of your ad.

Descriptions should avoid things like capital letters or excessive punctuation, as these can make your ad appear unprofessional and may violate ad policies.

3. Avoid Duplicate Titles

Duplicate titles can hurt your campaign performance just like duplicate keywords. If two products with the same title and price appear in your feed, Microsoft may only serve one ad, meaning variations in colour, size, or style won’t be shown. To avoid this, expand the titles of variants by including attributes like colour, size, material, or pattern to highlight the differences.

Also, use the Item Group ID attribute for products that have variations. This ensures that all versions of a product – such as different sizes or colours – are correctly grouped and displayed.

4. Shopping Image Considerations

Images play a vital role in showing customers a visual of the product as if they are in the store. Use high-resolution images, and if possible, show the product in multiple colours and in use to give shoppers a better idea of how it looks.

Here are some essential guidelines for images:

• Minimum image size: 220px by 220px
• Maximum image size: 3.9MB
• Acceptable formats: .bmp, .gif, .exif, .jpg, .png
• Prefer images with a white background and avoid adding text like “free shipping” or watermarks

Ensure the image link is case-sensitive, and if you update the image, also update the URL in the feed to reflect the new image in the ad. Microsoft’s bots will crawl your site in order to reference the image you’ve provided via a URL; ensure your website’s robots.text file is configured to allow Bingbot to crawl your site and retrieve product images. 

5. Ensure Attribute Columns Are Populated

The shopping tab allows users to filter products by attributes like colour, size, material, and gender. To maximise your product’s visibility in these filters, it’s essential to populate your feed with attributes that help to surface your products to in-market searchers. For example, if a customer searches for “womens brown leather satchel with buckle,” and your feed includes these details, your product will appear more prominently in the filtered results. Ensure to populate feed columns including words or attributes that a shopper might search, rather than small details that wouldn’t sway a purchase decision either way.

6. Additional Feed Optimizations 

Product URLs

Your feed includes both an image URL and a product URL (the destination) and it’s essential that redirects are not applied to these URLs, as redirects can cause issues with ad serving. In cases where both the link and ads_redirect attributes are used, they should resolve to the same product landing page.

Product Pricing

Price is another critical factor in feed optimisation. Ensure that the price listed in the feed represents the price for a single unit. If you’re selling a bundle or multipack, ensure that the total price is listed (not the unit price), as listing only the unit price can lead to rejection.

If your product uses instalment pricing (e.g., mobile carrier plans), be sure to specify this in your feed. Additionally, attributes like sale price and sale price effective dates can be used to highlight discount pricing, adding further appeal to your shopping ads.

Conclusion

Given product feeds replace keywords and ad copy usually found in Search campaigns, the attributes within your feed act as levers to improve the searches your ad is serving against, as well as increasing CTRs and conversion rates. By optimising your feed to appeal to search behaviours and purchase preferences, your ad is more likely to gain visibility within beneficial searches. Think of your feed not as a stockroom, but as a storefront – every detail matters in attracting and converting potential buyers.

Here’s a beginner-friendly guide to help you set up, manage, and optimise your feed for success.

What is a Shopping Feed?

At its core, a Microsoft Shopping Feed is a structured spreadsheet, containing all the necessary details about your products such as titles, descriptions, prices, and availability. 

Microsoft Advertising uses this information to match your products with what people are searching for online. If your feed is incomplete or incorrect, your products might not show up in searches, which means you could miss out on potential sales.

How It Works

Whenever someone searches for a product, Microsoft scans its catalog (which includes your feed) to find the best matches. If your feed is well set up, your product will show up when it’s relevant. But if it’s not, other retailers with well-optimised feeds are ready to take your spot, potentially leaving your product out of relevant searches

Adding optional information (known as attributes or fields), like special promotions or product conditions (such as ‘new’ or ‘used’), gives you more control over how your products are shown. These fields provide Microsoft with additional information, enabling the system to more accurately match your ad to relevant searches, while keeping the format and appearance unchanged.

Top Product Feed Tips

Here are some key attributes that can enhance your Microsoft Shopping Feed:

• Promotion ID: Highlight specific deals or discounts in your ads, which can help attract price-sensitive shoppers.
• Condition: Tell customers if your product is new, used, or refurbished, so they know exactly what they’re getting.
• Shipping: Adding “Free Shipping” can be a powerful incentive for shoppers and boost your click-through rate.
• Sale Price: Showing a reduced price alongside the original price can help capture attention and increase conversions.
• Custom Labels: Tag and segment products for targeted campaigns, like promoting seasonal stock or bestsellers.

By paying attention to these recommended fields, you can enhance your Shopping Feed and, ultimately, your Shopping Ads’ performance. Not only will your products be positioned more prominently among other shopping ads, but they’ll also appear with rich product information that helps customers to make purchase decisions.

Unique Identifier Warnings

In certain countries (like the US, UK, or Australia), you’ll need to provide unique identifiers (like barcodes) for your products. These help Microsoft accurately identify your products. If you don’t include them, your products might get flagged, or worse, your ads might not run at all. 

Creating Your Shopping Feed

Building your Shopping Feed might sound tricky, but it’s not as hard as you might think. Most online stores or ecommerce platforms already have tools that can create a feed for you. If you’re starting from scratch, a simple spreadsheet will work to organise your product data.

Here are steps to build a product feed:

1. Use your Google feed: If you have an existing Google Shopping feed, you can repurpose it for Microsoft Merchant Center. Although there are some differences between the platforms, adapting your Google feed is often more efficient than creating a new one from the ground up. 
2. Fill in required fields: Add product titles, descriptions, prices, and availability. Double-check that all required fields are completed and formatted accurately.
3. Add optional fields: Enhance your feed by including additional information like promotions, condition, and custom labels.
4. Test your feed: Before uploading, run a test to ensure there are no errors or missing fields. Microsoft Merchant Center offers tools to help validate your feed.

Setting Up Your Microsoft Shopping Feed

Now that you have your feed ready, you’ll need to upload it to Microsoft Merchant Center. Here’s a simple step-by-step guide:

1. Create a merchant center: Go to the Microsoft Merchant Center and sign up using your Microsoft Advertising account.
2. Upload your feed: You can manually upload a CSV or XML file, or if you use an ecommerce platform like Shopify, connect it directly.
3. Map the fields: Microsoft will ask you to map the product attributes (fields) in your feed to its predefined fields. 
4. Submit for review: Microsoft will check your feed and approve it if everything looks good.

Once your feed is approved, your products will start appearing in relevant Shopping ads across Microsoft’s network.

Optimising Your Feed for Better Performance 

Now that your feed is live, it’s essential to optimise it for conversions. Make sure key details are at the forefront of your product titles and descriptions to reach customers who are closer to purchase.

Key Optimisation Tips:

1. Perfect your product titles: The product title is the first thing shoppers see, so make it specific and keyword-rich. Instead of “Red Dress,” opt for “Women’s Long Sleeve Red Cocktail Dress,” including details like colour, gender, occasion, and style.
2. Improve your Descriptions: Ensure product descriptions are clear and relevant, prioritising key details at the start for improved visibility. For instance, if someone searches for “purple spotty umbrella,” present that information upfront. Avoid burying important details like colour, pattern, or style in the middle of a list, and refrain from unnecessary promotional text, using all capital letters, or gimmicky foreign characters.
3. Use High-Quality Images: Use clear, high-resolution product images with clutter-free backgrounds for the best results. 
4. Avoid Duplicates: Ensure titles and prices are unique for each product variant to avoid only one version being shown. For example, list different colours or sizes distinctly, using the Item Group ID for variant groups.
5. Add Custom Labels: These allow you to group products into segments for better bidding strategies. For instance, use labels like “seasonal” or “best_sellers” to control how you target these categories.

Troubleshooting Common Shopping Feed Issues

Shopping feeds are essential for optimal ad performance, but various issues can arise that affect product visibility and campaign success. 

1. Products Not Approved: If your products aren’t showing up, Microsoft Merchant Center will tell you why. It might be a pricing error or missing details. Just make the necessary changes and resubmit.
2. Expired Feeds: Microsoft requires your feed to be updated at least every 30 days; otherwise, it expires, and your ads will stop showing. Schedule weekly uploads to Microsoft Merchant Center to ensure your feed remains current.
3. Feed Disapprovals: If Microsoft disapproves your feed, it’s usually due to missing fields or low-quality images. Check the Merchant Center for details, fix the issue, and re-submit.
4. Poor Feed Quality: Missing or inaccurate data (like GTINs or low-quality images) can hurt your ad rankings. Make sure your feed is complete and well-optimised to get the best results.

Final Thoughts: Keep Your Feed Updated

Shopping Ads are a great way to promote your products to customers who are actively shopping online. By making the most of the optional attributes within your feed, you can highlight key traits of your products that help to turn browsers into buyers. Stay on top of search terms reports and tweak your feed accordingly for the best chance at reaching your customers at the moment that matters.

In this article, we’ll review best practices for Microsoft Shopping Campaign structures and explore the benefits, the different ways you can set them up, and how they can help you make the most of this crucial period.

1. Segment by Audience

Tailoring your campaigns based on audience is a powerful way to ensure that you’re targeting the right people at the right stage of the customer journey. By creating separate campaigns for different audiences – prospecting (new customers) and retargeting (existing customers) – you can deliver more relevant and effective ads, whilst strategically controlling your investment.

Best Practices for Segmenting by Audience:

• Prospecting Campaigns: Target new customers using In-Market Audiences to reach users who are actively considering products similar to yours.
• Existing Customers: Utilise Remarketing, Custom Audiences, and Product Audiences to re-engage users who have interacted with your brand or made past purchases. Customer Match can be particularly effective in delivering personalised ads to high-value customers.

The Benefits:

• Efficiency: Align your Microsoft Shopping Campaigns with your broader audience strategy, ensuring consistency across shopping, audience, and search campaigns.
• Coverage: Reach users at each step of the conversion funnel, from awareness to conversion.

2. Query Funnelling

Query funnelling is another smart approach for structuring your shopping campaigns. By separating brand and non-brand queries, you can create a more nuanced bidding strategy that targets users based on their search intent.

How to Set It Up:

• Non-brand Campaign: High priority, lower bids, with negative keywords excluding product names and brand terms.
• Brand Campaign: Medium priority with higher bids and negative keywords for generic terms.
• Catch-all Campaign: Low priority with the highest bids and no negative keywords.

The Benefits:

• Consistency: Manage your shopping campaigns similarly to search campaigns by segmenting brand traffic from non-brand traffic.
• Efficiency: Take advantage of typically lower CPCs (cost-per-click) for branded queries while focusing budget where it’s needed most.
• Competitiveness: Bid more aggressively on non-brand queries, increasing your share of the market for generic searches.

3. Segment by Product Category

This structure is ideal for ecommerce businesses with large and diverse product catalogues. By segmenting your campaigns based on your website’s product categories, you can create a structure that mirrors your site navigation and allows for more granular bidding.

Best Practices for Segmenting by Product Category:

• Set higher bids for more granular product groupings as these tend to convert more effectively during the Q4 rush.
• Create separate product groups for each product category, brand, or even SKU level.

The Benefits:

• Consistency: This structure allows for easier troubleshooting and adjustments since it aligns with the way products are categorised on your website.
• Scalability: Works well for businesses of any size and can accommodate small or large product catalogues.
• Detailed Reporting: Enables 1:1 reporting for each product category, making it easier to analyse performance and optimise accordingly.
• Flexibility: Easily expand your structure as new product categories or brands are added to your feed.

4. Segment by Profitability

Profitability-based segmentation is a strategic approach that focuses on grouping products based on their performance metrics, such as Return on Ad Spend (ROAS). This allows you to prioritise investment towards products that generate the most revenue, and likely the most profit.

How to Set It Up:

• Group products by their profitability levels and assign higher bids to more profitable / higher ROAS products, particularly during peak shopping seasons.
• Regularly monitor low-inventory items, and move products between ad groups by adjusting feed labels.

The Benefits:

• Profit Maximisation: Allocate more budget to high-performing products and increase bids for top sellers to maximise profitability.
• Responsiveness: Quickly adjust bids and budgets in real time based on stock levels and sales performance.
• Detailed Analysis: Pull SKU-level reports to see which products are driving the most profit and make informed decisions about bid adjustments.

Differences Between Google & Microsoft Shopping Campaign Structures

When structuring your campaigns, it’s crucial to understand that while granular structures work well on Google Shopping, they may not always be necessary for Microsoft Shopping Campaigns. Microsoft’s lower search volume means that broad categories can be effective, but bids should still be adjusted separately for each platform to account for different CPCs and performance dynamics.

Best Practices for Microsoft Shopping Campaign Structure

As we head into Q4, here are a few general best practices to keep in mind:

• Campaign Priorities: Consider your campaign priority alongside your structural approach, especially when adding new campaigns.
• Bids: Start with bids higher than the minimum (around £0.30 to £1.00), as this will help your ads gain visibility quickly in a competitive environment.
• Monitor Untargeted Offers: Regularly check the Merchant Centre for any untargeted offers and update your campaign structure as needed.

Conclusion

As we move into Q4, the right Microsoft Shopping Campaign structure can make or break your seasonal performance. Remember, a flexible and responsive approach allows for real-time adjustments and ensures that your campaigns remain competitive in an ever-evolving marketplace. With these best practices in mind, your shopping campaigns will be set to capitalise on this crucial period, driving both revenue and long-term business growth.

You may be wondering where to start, but don’t worry. Although AI technology is a powerful tool, the implementation process doesn’t have to be complicated.  

In this guide, we’ll present you with a clear path to introducing AI to your daily tasks. We’ll also discuss the many uses that your AI could have within a content creation team.

What do you want to achieve?

The first step towards successfully integrating AI into your existing workflow is to identify your goals. 

For instance, do you want to increase efficiency, improve accuracy, or something else entirely? It’s important to keep this goal as your focus. That way, you can start planning with a clear vision on how best to change and adapt your workflow. 

Once you know what you want to achieve, you can take the next steps. It will become clear what solution would work best for you.

Analyse your current workflow

Before making any drastic changes to how your team works, it’s important to take a close look at your current workflow. 

Through analysing how you work, you can identify areas where AI could streamline processes or reduce errors. Ask yourself and your team about pain points in the content creation process. 

Analyse your existing content creation process, including types of content, production time and team roles. Try to identify bottlenecks, repetitive or time consuming tasks and areas where AI content generation could be beneficial. 

Choose an AI solution that works for you

With so many AI content management tools available, it can be difficult to know which one is right for your needs. Each has its own strengths and weaknesses. As a result, it can seem like a daunting process. 

However, with some careful consideration and planning you can implement this complex technology with lasting positive results. Keep an eye out for features like content creation, topic ideation or content analytics. If you’re still unsure, take advantage of free trials and demos. This will allow you to test the overall functionality of each tool and whether they fit your requirements. 

As a starting point, these are a few factors to consider:

• How much does it cost?

It may seem like an obvious question, but understanding your budget is crucial. Be mindful of any fees associated with certain options. Otherwise, you may end up overspending on something you don’t need, or not having enough funds for something essential. 

• How easy is it to use?

Will your team quickly learn how to use AI for content creation, or will they need in depth training? If your team needs extensive training, it could be a costly exercise that takes up too much time for it to be worthwhile. Make sure the end decision takes into account the overall user experience. 

It is probably wise to allocate some resources to training your team on how to effectively use these new tools. After all, they will have a huge influence on the overall success of the project.

• Is it scalable? 

The demands placed on your new system may seem constant at the moment, but can potentially change from one moment to the next. It’s best to make sure from the outset that it can handle large amounts of data without crashing or slowing down. 

• Is it compatible with your existing technology?

Before you fully commit, make sure you find out whether any existing infrastructure could help reduce your overall costs. Of course, you should still expect this to support modern AI solutions. If not, you may be creating performance issues for your team down the line.

Implementing your chosen AI solution

Once you’re confident that you have made the right decision it’s time to implement your chosen AI into your workflow. 

Before going ahead with a full overhaul of your processes, why not consider a phased approach to AI integration? By starting with using AI tools for one or two tasks in your workflow, your team will soon get used to the new technology. 

Creative teams can now go ahead and use AI to improve or save time on a host of daily tasks. We have outlined a selection to provide inspiration:

• Generating content strategies and outlines

AI tools for content writing can analyse your input and suggest organised outlines, headings and even brief overviews. Tools such as ChatGPT can save both time and resources when brainstorming ideas and provide a structured starting point for your writing. 

• Creating first drafts

An AI writing tool is an ideal assistant for putting together general information when creating a first draft. It could also provide a boost to content creators suffering from writer’s block. 

You can use the time saved from coming up with basic ideas to refine the content and add further insights from trusted sources. 

• Speeding up content research

Content marketers acknowledge that writing one blog post can take up to 3 hours and 51 minutes. But with AI tools, you could save the time spent on initial research and let AI scan online data for you. 

AI can collect relevant facts and background information in a matter of seconds. This means you will have the time to focus on improving your finished content and flexing your creative muscle. 

• Getting instant feedback on content

If you need instant feedback on a piece of content, where do you turn if your team is busy or unavailable? You can use AI tools.

In just a few moments, AI can automatically generate detailed and objective feedback and suggest recommendations. If you require quick feedback on a draft, it can be a useful signifier of how to move forward with it. 

• Repurposing existing content

AI tools can take your original piece of content and reformat it with ease. For example, turning a blog post into engaging content for social media. By tailoring the language, structure and style to suit different platforms, your content can have a wider reach.

However, it is worth bearing in mind that each platform will have its own consumption patterns and audience expectations. You will still need to change your approach depending on what you want to achieve. 

• Clustering keywords

Clustering keywords is an effective way to create more focused content strategies. AI tools such as ChatGPT can quickly organise and brainstorm content centred around clustered themes. This can save a great deal of time when compared to sorting relevant keywords into groups and themes manually.

• Streamlining the editing process

A typo or grammatical error can undermine all of your hard work. But, sometimes finding the time to proofread effectively can be difficult. Things may slip through the cracks, especially during busy times. 

With the help of an AI editing assistant, you can quickly identify and correct typos and unclear phrasing. All while keeping the content in line with the brand style guide and tone of voice. 

• Personalising content for your target audience

Personalising your content to align with the preferences and interests of your target audience can greatly improve engagement. AI tools can analyse data to fine tune and adjust your messaging. This will make sure it resonates with the specific groups you are trying to appeal to. 

Monitoring the performance of your AI

Once you’ve implemented your AI, it’s important to measure whether it is actually helping you to meet your goals. Make sure you track metrics such as content quality, content production time and audience engagement. This way, you will be able to use data to continue to refine your workflow.

AI tools can be a helpful addition to your workflow, but they are not a direct substitute for human-written content. AI content may lack the emotional resonance and empathy to compete with human writers. Some elements may potentially need fact checking before the approval stage. 

Despite the limitations, you shouldn’t be afraid to experiment with different AI tools in order to find the right one for your needs. 

What to avoid when changing your workflow

A common pitfall made by those wanting to optimise their workflow is not taking the time to plan thoroughly. Making changes without considering the outcome might lead to unforeseen issues and delays further down the line. 

It’s also best to try to avoid implementing too many new systems or processes at the same time. It can become difficult to track the success of multiple changes and team members may become overwhelmed. 

Key Takeaways

By implementing AI content technology at certain points in your workflow, you could save a wealth of time and resources. As AI technology continues to change and evolve, so do the number of ways in which content teams could use this tech. The potential for innovating content strategies and output grows with every development.

By introducing AI tools, you are complementing the existing skills and strengths of your team. And as these tools become more advanced, enhancing capabilities and streamlining tasks. 

At the moment AI generated content is most effective when it has human knowledge and creativity to guide it. But the time saved means other creative projects and strategies can flourish. By finding the right AI solution and monitoring the results, you could find your organisation becoming more agile. 

This blog was written for Adzooma with the support of CTI Digital, award-winning Content and SEO services agency. For more insightful tips, please head over to our blog, or get in touch to speak to our team if you have any questions!

Acting as your virtual assistant, automation monitors your account all hours of the day, making changes and sending you an alert when you need to take action. 

Before, automated rules meant using or coding scripts inside Google Ads. With Adzooma, these rules are set up easily with our simplified rule builder. 

And to get you started, we’ve taken the top 3 rules that every business needs to apply, showing you how to apply them in your free Adzooma account.

Broken Campaign Alert 

Get alerted if your adverts aren’t showing to customers with the Broken Campaign Alert. This gives you confidence your campaigns are all up and running and notifies you to take action if something is blocking your campaigns. 

To set this up, you’ll need to click ‘New Automation Rule’ from the Automation tab, then click ‘Create Custom Rule’. Using our rule creator, follow these steps: 

1. Give the rule a name 

First things first, let’s give this rule a name. We’ve called it the ‘Broken Campaign Alert’ here. 

If you want, you can also add a description in this box to help remind yourself what the rule does. 

2. Set the campaigns you want it to look after

On the ‘Apply To’ step, you can select which campaigns you want the rule to look after. As this rule alerts us if any of our campaigns aren’t showing, we’re going to want to set it to look after all our active campaigns. 

To do this, select ‘Campaigns from the first drop menu and ‘All active campaigns’ from the second. 

3. Create our actions 

In the ‘Conditions’ stage, we set what our rule checks, and what action it takes. For the Broken Campaign Alert, we want it to alert us when something is wrong. So using the drop down menus, you’ll enter the following information. 

• Action: Notify me
• Time Period: using data from Custom, 1 days of data. 

Now we have to add these AND conditions. 

• Spend = 0
• Clicks = 0 
• Impressions < 0 

This means that for this rule to notify us, the spend on your campaign needs to be 0, your clicks have to be 0, and your impressions need to be less than 0. Or, in simple terms, your campaign isn’t spending money or being shown to anyone. 

To add these conditions, press the blue ‘Add condition’ button and search for the above from the drop-down menus. 

4. Set the frequency 

Now the hard part of the rule is done, we have to set how often Adzooma should check this rule. For this rule, we’d recommend setting it to run daily at a time you’re most likely to be online. 

For this example, we’ll set it to run every day at 10am, but you’re free to choose a time that works best for you. 

With the above in place, you’re ready to go! All you need to do now is click save. 

Low Quality Score warning 

Quality Score is a number between 1 and 10 that looks at how relevant your ads are to your keywords, how many clicks they’re expected to get and what experience users will get from your website. 

Your Quality Score is a big factor in where your ads are shown and how much you have to pay for them. The better your Quality Score (i.e. closer to 10), the cheaper your ads, so it’s a big one to pay attention to. 

With this rule, you will get alerted if any of your keywords have a low Quality Score so you can take action. To set it up, you’ll need to click ‘New Automation Rule’ from the Automation tab, then click ‘Create Custom Rule’ like before. 

1. Give the rule a name 

First up, the rule needs a name. We’re calling it ‘Low Quality Score Warning’ here. 

If you want to add a description to give extra context, you can enter that in the box below. 

2. Select all active keywords 

In the ‘Apply To’ stage, you can select which campaigns you want the rule to check. Because this rule is a great all-rounder, we’re going to apply it to any active keyword that you are running in all your campaigns. 

To do this, just select ‘Keywords’ on the first drop-down menu and ‘All Active Keywords’ on the second. 

3. Create our actions 

Now it’s time to tell Adzooma what we want the rule to do. 

• Firstly, under the action, you need to select ‘Notify me’ from the drop-down menu. This will make sure you are alerted as soon as the Quality Score drops. 
• Secondly, you want to select ‘Last Week’ from the time period menu for accurate results. 

Next, it’s time to add our conditions. There’s only one thing we’re looking for in case – keywords with a Quality Score that’s 3 and under. 

• Click the blue ‘+ Add Condition’ button
• Search for Quality Score in the first box
• Select ‘Less Than Or Equal To’ in the second
• Enter 3 in the final box.  

4. Set the frequency 

At this point, we set how often we want Adzooma to check our Quality Scores, which can be as often as every 30 minutes. 

However, in this case, we’re going to set it to run every Wednesday at 11.00am, which is a day we have time dedicated to make any changes to our campaigns. 

And that’s it! Click save and you’re done. 

Pause underperforming keywords

Keywords are the foundations of your campaigns. If there’s a weak spot, the whole structure becomes a little shaky. 

With this rule, you can make sure that you’re always building on solid ground. It will identify the keywords that are affecting your performance and pause them on your behalf to save money and deliver more clicks. 

To get started, click ‘New Automation Rule’ from the Automation tab, then click ‘Create Custom Rule’ as normal. 

1. Give the rule a name

Following the same drill as the other rules, your first step is to give this rule a name. We’ve called ours Pause Underperforming Keywords. It does what it says on the tin. 

If you want to add any extra information to this rule, just fill out the optional description box underneath it. 

2. Select all active keywords 

Same as the last rule, we want to apply this to any active keyword that you are running in all your campaigns. This gives great all-round protection to every campaign that you’re running. 

Select ‘Keywords’ on the first drop-down menu and ‘All active Keywords’ on the second. 

3. Create our actions 

In the ‘Conditions’ stage, we set the nitty-gritty details about what we want the rule to check and the action we want it to take. 

In this case, we want it to pause any keyword that isn’t performing. To do that, we need to: 

• Choose ‘Change Status’ from the Action drop-down menu, then select pause. 
• Select ‘Custom’ in the Time Period data menu, then type in 90 days. This will give us a better scope to understand and measure your keyword performance. 

Now, we define what bad performance is for your keywords. You can customize this to suit your business, but we’d recommend the following settings to get started. 

• CTR is less than 1%
• Impressions are greater than or equal to 200
• Clicks are greater than or equal to 15

These conditions are chosen to target keywords with a bad clickthrough rate, but avoid any keywords that are new or haven’t had time to collect data yet. They need to have been seen, but not clicked. 

Use the drop-down menus to enter the above information, using the blue ‘+’ button to add a new row. 

4. Set the frequency 

Finally, we need to set how often the rule runs. 

For this rule, we’re going to set it to run every half an hour, every day of the week. That gives us 24/7 protection over our accounts. 

When this rule runs, your keyword will be paused but you’ll also be notified so you can optimize your accounts. Want to swap these keywords out with new ones? Take a look at our PPC keyword research guide for more expert tips and advice.  

Set rules in a click with Adzooma Plus 

We’ve detailed how to manually set up these rules inside Adzooma. But if you would rather set these rules in a single click, you’ll need Adzooma Plus.

With your Adzooma Plus subscription, you’ll gain access to 81 automation templates created by PPC experts, including the three above. All you need to do is find the one you want, then click apply. 

To upgrade to Adzooma Plus, login to your account and click billing from the right-hand menu. Or get in touch with our team to get a tour of what’s on offer. 

That’s all great. But if you have little to no SEO knowledge, it might sound like a pipe dream without investing in an in-house expert or an expensive agency to show you the way. And yeah, if you don’t have the time or inclination, you can turn to an agency or a consultant. 

But, we’re here to tell you that building a powerful SEO strategy can be done alone, without the need of in-depth knowledge or expensive tools. 

And to prove it, we’re going to help you create your own strategy, step-by-step, using our very own free SEO report. 

Ready to get started? 

First, let’s get your data 

The first step to any strategy is to see where you’re at right now. You need to get a measure of what your current performance is, what your weak points are and where you have the most potential for growth. 

Trying to start your strategy without this information is like starting to build a house without checking if you’re on solid ground. 

Let us get a look at your data first then. 

For this, you’re going to need to load up your SEO Performance Report. To access this, log into your Adzooma account, click reports at the top and select the SEO Performance report. 

Then, you need to enter your URL, select your target country and click the ‘Run Report’ button.

You can also enter a competitors URL here as well to compare your performance against theirs, which is a useful tool we’ll cover later in the article. 

While your SEO Report loads, you can watch this video explaining what results you’ll see in each of the sections. 

1. Find content opportunity in your keywords

The first section you’ll see in your SEO report is your 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. 

And there lies our opportunity to start building your SEO strategy on one of it’s most important cornerstones: content. 

When we say content here, we don’t mean bland blogs with keywords stuffed into them. We mean interesting, insightful blogs, videos, pages, podcasts, etc that provide value and are interesting to your target audience. 

Great content won’t just drive up your rankings, but also provide another avenue for customers to interact with your brand. 

So, let’s have a look at your top performing keywords as a base. 

Using Tetley Tea as an example, we can see from their SEO Performance Report that they’re already ranking for a lot of keywords about their infused flavours or ‘boost teas’. 

Putting those together, we could create great content for Tetley for topics such as: 

• How these teas can reduce tiredness
• What to eat and drink for your metabolism
• Health benefits of ‘super teas’ 
• And so on

If you’ve entered a competitor on your SEO Performance Report, you’ll also see the keywords your competitors are ranking for, as well as a keyword gap analysis. 

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. 

In our SEO Performance Report, we added PG Tips as a competitor. This brought out these keywords that PG tips were ranking for, and Tetley Tea weren’t: 

• how much caffeine in pg tips tea
• how is pg tips tea decaffeinated
• pg tips newsletter
• pg tips tea decaf
• pg tips decaf tea bags
• are pg tips tea bags plastic-free
• what does pg stand for in pg tips
• pg tips complaint
• pg tips decaf tea
• pg tips cup

Although most of these keywords are branded, we can see a few topics here that PG Tips are ranking for that Tetley could use for themselves, including decaf tea. 

As well as becoming a part of your SEO strategy, these keywords could also influence great competitor PPC campaigns. For example, if Tetley were to target the ‘pg tips tea decaf’ or ‘pg tips decaf tea’ keywords, they could run an advert like this to gain some of their competitor’s organic traffic.

2. Build your keyword list out

Now you have your general topics, it’s time to build your keyword list out. 

There are a number of tools that you can use for this part, including SEMrush’s Keyword Magic Tool, Google Trends and Answer the Public. If you’ve not used a keyword tool before, you’ll want to see our guide to 18 of the best SEO keyword tools and tips. 

When you’re picking keywords here, don’t just aim for the ones with the most traffic. Generally speaking, the more traffic they receive, the harder they’ll be to rank for. So you’ll need a good mix of low-volume keywords to target for your chosen topics.

Here’s one piece of advice to follow when building out this part of your SEO strategy:

Don’t think keywords, think search intent. 

Search intent is a simple term to represent an incredibly important piece of information. Namely, when users search for something on the internet, they are doing it for a very particular reason. 

In order to serve the best content, search engines like Google categorise search intent into four different categories: 

• Informational. This is when users are after a particular piece of information. They are often questions that ask who, what, where, when or why. 
  • E.g. “Can teabags be put in a compost bin?” 
• Navigational. This is when users are after a specific webpage or location, usually for brands or websites that they’re familiar with. 
  • E.g. “Tetley customer support”
• Commercial. This is where users are interested in and researching a product, and are looking for reviews, comparisons or information about which one they should buy. 
  • E.g. “Best green tea UK”
• Transactional. This is made by people who are ready to buy a product, and tend to be ultra targeted and specific searches. 
  • E.g. “Buy Tetley Green Tea Berry Burst” 

With this in mind, you want to make sure that the keywords you’re targeting are fit for purpose. There’s no point building keywords into your strategy that don’t match up to user intent, as it doesn’t provide value to your customers and Google won’t show them. 

3. Let’s get technical 

Okay, here’s the part where most people get intimidated and drop out. But before you get spooked by technical SEO, let me reassure you that you don’t need to be a developer to build this into your SEO Strategy. 

Technical SEO involves making sure technical aspects of your website and content are easy for users to access, and easy for search engines to index. 

With your SEO Performance Report, you’ll already have the technical SEO actions you need to build into your SEO strategy. We’ve broken them down into two simple sections: 

• Your onsite SEO, which gives you recommendations to optimise specific pages on your website. 
• Your page speed, which gives you recommendations to speed up your website.  

In the Onsite SEO section, you’ll get a list of actions that you need to take, why it’s important and what you need to do to implement this action.

Everything is explained for you inside your report. For example, Tetley Tea will see this as one of their Onsite SEO actions: 

Your page https://www.tetley.co.uk/ doesn’t have a H1 heading, including this can help your SEO

When we click into it, we’ll find out that:

H1 headings help readers (and search engines) understand what your content is about. Using H1 tags to structure your page correlates with higher ranking, and therefore we recommend you use them. Normally, the H1 tag will give the reader a strong sense of what they are going to read. Above all else, it should be accurate!

We’ll also get information that H1 headings can also help you rank for a particular keyword and it’s recommended to include that keyword within the main H1 heading. In addition, you’ll also get an example so you can see how it’s done. 

The page speed section of the SEO Performance Report also offers similar information, but for actions that affect your website speed. 

They’ll also show the exact URLs, images and files that could be slowing down your website and losing you conversions, so you can go straight to fixing it. 

Armed with this information, and what actions you need to take, you can quickly fill in the technical SEO details to your SEO strategy. 

4. Create a solid backlink profile 

Last but not least, we have backlinks. 

Backlinks are a link from another website, to yours. Each link counts as a vote of confidence towards your website in the eyes of a search engine, which means that your website will start being seen as an authority figure. The more authoritative and trustworthy your website is, the better you’ll rank. 

On your SEO Performance Report, the backlink section will show you: 

• 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
• A list of some of your most recent backlinks and their individual quality scores. 

If you entered a competitor URL, you’ll also see all of this information in comparison to your competitor, as well as a list of some of their most recent backlinks. 

This section can be used to create a quality backlink profile in a number of ways. 

Firstly, it gives you an overview of the authority of your website and the quality of your backlinks. If your score is low, then you need to focus on gaining backlinks from more authoritative websites. 

In the backlink game, quality beats quantity here every time. 20 average backlinks could be less effective than one link from an amazing site. Think high, aim high here.

One way to check a website’s authority is by using Moz’s Domain Authority (DA) metric. Enter any URL in this tool, or install their toolbar to check DA scores on the go. Generally, websites that have a domain authority of 10 or under should be avoided and those with a score of 40 and above are your golden ticket. 

Remember those topics we created earlier? Why not create some guest posts to feature on other websites. This is a great place to gain backlinks, build relationships with people in your industry and gain additional traffic to your website.  

Secondly, you can use the recent backlinks list to take a look at which pieces of your content are already being shared – and any low scorers that you might want to avoid in the future. If you’ve got one really popular page, why not increase this success with more content that points to it? 

This will also help you build link equity. This is a fancy SEO term that basically means certain links pass value and authority. So, if you’ve got a relevant and popular page, it’s going to have more ‘link power’ than others.  

Lastly, take inspiration from your competitors. If they’re getting backlinks from websites you haven’t considered before, put them into your SEO strategy. Even better, think of similar websites that they haven’t got on their list and target them. 

Plan, action & repeat

And there you have it, how to build an SEO strategy from one report. 

Now the hard planning part is over, you just need to carry out the plan and then check in on your results. We can’t stress the importance of this part. 

You need to make sure that what you’re doing is having an impact on your business. If there are parts of it that are working better than others, you need to know so you can improve your strategy and deliver even better results. 
To keep an eye on your results, we’d recommend running your SEO Performance Report at least once a month. You’ll be able to compare your scores over time and get continuous new actions and recommendations to take your SEO efforts to the next level.