Should you run Microsoft Ads and Google Shopping campaigns too?

Microsoft Ads is usually worth it once Google is working, because the import is cheap and the clicks often are too. Google Shopping is only worth it if you sell products and will maintain a product feed. Neither is worth it if the added management cost exceeds the incremental profit.

Microsoft Ads

Microsoft Advertising publishes an import tool for exactly this. Microsoft's own documentation says the tool imports campaign data from supported platforms including Google Ads, that supported elements "may include ad copy, creative assets, targeting settings, and campaign structure information," and that recurring imports can keep campaigns synchronized so you are not maintaining two accounts by hand.

Import, then adjust. Do not set and forget. Volume is lower, so budgets, bid strategies and conversion thresholds that worked on Google may not have enough data to run the same way. Microsoft's audience skews somewhat older and more desktop, which suits B2B, professional services and higher consideration purchases better than it suits impulse retail.

Google Shopping

Shopping runs on a product feed in Merchant Center, and the feed is the whole job. Google's product data specification lists ID, title, description, link, image link, price and availability as required, with brand required for most new products, plus GTIN or MPN where applicable, variant attributes such as item group ID, color and size, accurate pricing that matches your site and checkout, and shipping and returns data. Google also names the usual failure points: wrong product category values, missing variant attributes, low quality images, and data that conflicts between the feed and the website.

If nobody owns feed quality, Shopping will underperform and you will blame the campaign. If you do own it, Shopping is often the highest intent traffic an ecommerce business can buy.

Price the decision honestly

Each additional platform adds $350 per month to our management fee. So the question is simple: can this platform plausibly return more than $350 in profit per month, on top of covering its own ad spend? For Microsoft Ads on a healthy Google account, usually yes. For Shopping without a maintained feed, usually no.

Related: What paid advertising platforms does LevelUp Digital manage?, Do you charge a management fee on top of ad spend?, Do you build e-commerce websites?, and our retainer pricing.