Microsoft just announced Multi-platform, an all-in-one feature available in Smart Campaigns that lets you run ads in Microsoft, Google, Facebook, and Instagram all through the Microsoft interface.
Tell me more. The feature isn’t available to all advertisers yet but you can sign up for the waitlist here. Multi-channel advertising has technically existed since 2020, but since they launched a newly redesigned Smart Campaigns experience, my guess is that Multi-channel has been revamped for use with AI.
Multi-platform lets advertisers expand their reach by providing a single place to manage and report on campaigns across the most popular ad platforms. The Microsoft AI can also optimize your budget for performance.
What about social media. Microsoft says that Smart Campaigns and Multi-platform will also help drive traffic to your website and organic social media. From their announcement:
What else can Multi-platform do. When you set up a Smart campaign within Microsoft, the Multi-platform feature is free. With it, you can:
- Run search ads in Microsoft and Google
- Run social ads on Facebook and Instagram
- Publish content, like, and reply to comments on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter
- Gather and analyze reports
- Create campaigns
- Automate content for the AI
- Optimize ROI with AI
- Leverage AI for campaign management
- Connect ads with relevant keywords or online searches
- Use Microsoft’s audience network
Learn more about Smart campaigns and Multi-platform. Read the announcement here, and learn more about what Multi-platforms can do here.
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Why we care. This seems like a pretty robust and exciting feature that I look forward to testing when it becomes widely available. Being able to manage Google, Facebook, Instagram and social campaigns from one dashboard is both convenient and intriguing.
Unanswered questions. How will the Microsoft AI will be used to manage and optimize auctions on the Google network? Will Facebook Audiences be pulled into the Microsoft interface, or will Microsoft present its own audience targeting options and only show ads to those that match with Facebook? I’ve reached out to Microsoft for comment.
If you have access to Multi-platform, try it out. If not, sign up for the waitlist with your Microsoft Ad Account ID. Admittedly, I hadn’t signed into the Microsoft ad platform in quite some time. But 20 minutes and multiple security codes later I was signed up and received not much more than a “thanks” in return.
Update. The multi-platform feature is available to all advertisers and there is no longer a waitlist. If you’re interested in creating multi-platform ads, visit the Microsoft blog for more info.
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