With more than 700 million devices running Windows 10, which support Cortana and Bing, Microsoft has been able to automate advertising across its network of applications and platforms. Microsoft made this possible by integrating data from Bing and its Audience Network into a variety of consumer and business applications, such as LinkedIn, across its network of sites.

Bing, Microsoft’s largest artificial intelligence-based application, continues to define the company’s advertising strategy.

It does so with help from the Microsoft Graph, pulling in and sharing data from Outlook, MSN, LinkedIn, Skype and many of its other platforms to drive audience-based targeting rather than keyword attribution.  

For example, using the graph data to target consumers or audiences in the market for specific products allows advertisers to identify more than 200 categories where consumers have signaled an intent to purchase a product.

“We’ve seen over 50% higher conversions and 20% higher click through rates for this in-market targeting experience,” said Steve Sirich, general manager at Microsoft on the global search ads business team.

The Microsoft Audience Network introduce in May also leverages the Microsoft Graph to use native advertising across consumer-based products like Outlook and MSN.

Campaigns running in Bing Ads on the search engine also can extend into the Microsoft Audience Network. Both would operate as one campaign. Then Microsoft offers specific audience campaigns, buying audiences across MSN, Edge and other Microsoft platforms in which several hundred advertisers are piloting.  

“We’re seeing a lift of searches on brand terms relative to post exposure,” he said.

Advertisers will use keywords, but remain part of a portfolio of targeting tools. “I don’t think we will ignore the intent signals in keywords,” he said. “If you have additional data from targeting profiles within LinkedIn, for example, it allows advertisers to isolate the intent.”

Microsoft also announced this week Bing Ads Scripts, now rolling out in beta, lets advertisers access and manage campaigns using simple JavaScript in the Bing Ads browser-based script editor. The move lets advertisers perform highly customized tasks without having to rely on technical developers or extensive API coding. It’s all about automation.