Microsoft Advertising reaches the default search surfaces in managed Windows environments: Bing, the Edge browser, Windows search and Copilot. When somebody there searches for a managed service provider (MSP) in your city, the ad beside that result is bought through Microsoft Advertising rather than through Google Ads.
NUOPTIMA runs Microsoft Advertising for MSPs as an extension of the paid search already working on Google. We import the campaigns that already convert, rebuild or verify the parts that need it, set bids for a smaller auction, and report against booked opportunities rather than clicks. Microsoft renamed the product Microsoft Advertising, and the older name is still common.
Bing Ads for MSPs are paid search campaigns on Microsoft Advertising, the network behind Bing, the Edge browser, Windows search and Copilot. For an MSP it is a second, smaller auction on the same buying intent you already pay for on Google, built out of the account you already run.
Why Bing belongs in an MSP paid mix
Bing belongs in the mix when your Google search campaigns already convert. A search for managed IT support in your city means the same thing whichever box it was typed into. The keywords, landing pages and negatives all come out of the Google account, so standing this up is mostly assembly rather than invention.
- Same intent, a smaller auction. In the accounts we have run, clicks on Microsoft Advertising have cost less than the same terms on Google, because fewer advertisers compete for them. We do not publish a figure.
- Reach you buy separately. Results on Microsoft surfaces are bought through Microsoft Advertising rather than through Google Ads. Audiences overlap, so read this as added reach on the same demand rather than a separate population of buyers.
Our paid ads for MSPs page covers how the paid channels split the work, and Google Ads for MSPs is the campaign this one extends.
Where Bing volume comes from for IT services
The volume sits on the Microsoft surfaces a business already has in front of it. Edge ships with Windows and uses Bing for search, and in a managed environment settings like that can be applied centrally rather than machine by machine. The Windows search box can return web results alongside local files, and Copilot is one of the Microsoft surfaces the network reaches. We watch how a placement behaves before moving budget onto it.
Read that as a pocket of demand from the same kind of buyer, bought on a separate network, and as an addition to Google search rather than a substitute for it.
What we actually run
We build and manage the Microsoft account end to end, alongside your Google account rather than inside it. Everything sits in an account you own and keep.
- Account build and import: we create or take over the account, import the Google campaigns worth running, and cut the ones that only made sense at Google volume.
- Keyword and match structure: managed IT services, co-managed IT, cybersecurity and compliance terms paired with your city and verticals, structured tightly enough to read on a smaller data set.
- Tracking rebuilt or verified: the Universal Event Tracking (UET) tag on the site, conversion goals for calls, forms and booked meetings, and a check that each one fires before spend starts.
- Search partner control: Microsoft's syndicated search partner traffic can be included in a campaign and behaves differently from the main results page, so we review it and exclude what wastes money.
- Reporting to pipeline: spend, booked opportunities and contracted value, shown next to your Google numbers.
How the Google Ads import works, and what we rebuild
The import moves the structure, and the parts that decide whether the account makes money get built by hand. Microsoft Advertising pulls campaigns, ad groups, keywords, ads and most settings straight from Google, which is why an account can be standing quickly.
Shared negative lists can arrive incomplete, and the queries Microsoft serves differ from the ones Google serves, so we rebuild negatives against the account's own search terms early. Conversion tracking gets rebuilt or verified on the UET tag with every goal checked firing before spend, and remarketing audiences usually need a fresh build against UET traffic before they hold enough people to serve.
Bids and budgets that fit a smaller auction
Microsoft gets its own bids, its own budget and its own patience, because the data arrives more slowly. Carrying the Google settings across unchanged is a common reason a new account looks like a failure early.
- Separate budgets, sized to real demand. On a narrow keyword set in one service area a daily budget can go unspent, so we set it against the volume that exists and raise it when the search terms justify more.
- Bids reset to this auction. Imported bids were set by a different competitive picture, so we reset them and let the account show where they belong. Automated bidding waits until there is conversion volume worth optimizing to.
Fewer clicks per keyword means the data arrives more slowly, so we judge at ad group and campaign level and use your Google account as the prior for which terms convert. The common failure mode is over-reaction rather than the channel: a keyword paused before it had shown anything, a budget cut just before the data became readable. Changes get made at the next review, on what the account has actually produced.
How the engagement works
We read your Google account before we build anything, and that read decides whether the rest is worth doing. The account, the tag and the history stay yours throughout.
- The read. We look at your Google account, service area and converting terms, then say whether Microsoft holds enough volume to justify the setup. Sometimes the answer is no, and hearing that before you commit a budget is the point.
- Build and import. Account, import, negatives, UET tag, conversion goals and landing page checks. Nothing goes live until the tracking is verified.
- Launch and review. Campaigns run, the search terms report gets worked weekly, negatives tighten, bids settle. Retargeting switches on once the audiences populate.
- Scale or stop. If Microsoft holds the benchmark your Google account already set, budget goes up. If it falls short, we say so and put the money back where it works.
You approve the strategy and the spend, then read one report showing both accounts side by side.
The economics of a smaller auction
The ceiling on this channel is volume, not price. The question your finance partner should ask is how much qualified search exists in your service area, and how quickly a small data set becomes readable enough to act on.
- The benchmark is already inside your own account. Your Google campaigns already give you a pipeline benchmark, and you know what a managed contract earns across its life, so Microsoft is measured against a number you set rather than one we bring with us.
- Demand sets the budget. One metro and a narrow set of verticals can only produce so many searches, so we size spend to what is there and stop pushing when the queries run out. A share of your Google budget is the wrong way to pick the figure.
- The exit is clean. Separate account, separate budget, no shared bidding with Google, so you can throttle or stop Microsoft without touching the channel that already works.
What matters is whether the smaller auction adds pipeline without pushing your blended paid search cost up, and there is only so much qualified search in one service area, so a thinner data set needs time before it can answer that.
Results and proof
We run growth inside Cortavo, a national MSP, so the queries an MSP buyer actually types are ones we work with every week. The headline of that program is search and content, not paid search on Microsoft: $403,330 in contracted sales value at a 4.6x return on $88,500, and 261 to 10,000 organic visitors a month in 9 months. Those figures belong to organic search, and what carries across to a Microsoft account is the query list behind them.
Elsewhere in our client base, Eden Data grew 11.6x in organic traffic in six months, Microminder went from $0 to $1M+ in cybersecurity revenue, and more than 70 industry leaders trust us with growth. NUOPTIMA also holds a UK Search Awards 2022 win in the business-to-business (B2B) category and was a finalist at The Drum Awards for Search in 2023. More on our case studies page.
Paid search execution is a separate claim, and the clearest public number we hold there comes from e-commerce. For Icy Bear, a consumer brand, our Google Ads work produced £165K in converted sales from a £12K Google Ads budget, a 13x return on ad spend, 4.63K conversions at £2.63 each. Read that as evidence we can run a search account to a return on a short sales cycle, and not as an MSP result: the Icy Bear Google Ads case study has the detail.
Who this is for, and who it is not
This fits MSPs already winning contracts from Google search who want more of the same demand. If you are an MSP in the roughly $1M to $10M revenue range, your paid search is profitable, conversion tracking works and somebody picks up a new enquiry while the buyer is still deciding, adding Microsoft is a small and contained extension of something that already pays.
It is a poor fit if paid search is new to you, if your service area produces only a trickle of searches, if you are shopping for the channel that replaces Google, or if there is nobody to work the leads. This is the smaller auction, and available demand caps what it can do, so it asks for tight day to day management rather than a bigger budget.
If you want to know whether the volume exists in your market before spending anything, book a call and we will read your Google account and tell you what Microsoft would add.