Microsoft Advertising Expands Performance Max Controls, Reporting, and AI Campaign Tools

AI Creation of a First Performance Max Campaign

The new workflow is designed for companies that are just signing up for Microsoft Advertising. In addition to a website URL, an advertiser can upload a marketing plan, brand guidelines, and product images.

Based on these, the system builds an editable business profile: what products or services the company offers and how its ads should look and sound. After the profile is reviewed, AI builds a Performance Max campaign that can be launched right away or after first adjusting the budget, bidding strategy, ad copy, and creatives.

In its November newsletter dated November 9, Microsoft clarified the access conditions. The tool works for new advertisers in English-speaking markets, including the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia.

Before launch, advertisers can also edit audience signals, search themes, and negative keywords, and ads will not start serving without the advertiser's confirmation. The company has not confirmed whether this workflow can be used in existing accounts.

Age, Gender, and Device Targeting

In the October announcement, Microsoft said that age and gender targeting in Performance Max is generally available. It allows advertisers to include or exclude specific age groups and genders. Device type targeting, with the same include and exclude logic, was expected, according to the company, to become available to all advertisers in the coming weeks. Microsoft did not give specific dates.

The November newsletter describes the statuses more cautiously. It lists age and gender exclusions as generally available and describes device targeting as a pilot. For this reason, before planning a campaign structure, it is worth checking which of these settings are already available in a specific account.

Audience Exclusions and Brand Exclusions

Audience exclusions are in open pilot and make it possible to stop Performance Max ads from showing to selected audiences. The November newsletter clarifies that this applies to Customer Match and remarketing lists. At the same time, Microsoft is refining brand exclusions: advertisers will be able to apply them to text ads only, while product ads continue to show for the same branded queries.

This setting is useful for retailers that sell third-party brands and do not want to show text ads on other companies' branded queries. In November, this feature also received pilot status. To join either pilot, advertisers need to contact their account manager or the support team.

Search Term, Auction, and Landing Page Reports

In May 2026, when Microsoft added conversions, clicks, and spend to the Performance Max placement report, Auction Insights was still listed among upcoming features. Now the search terms report and Auction Insights are available for Performance Max.

The first shows which specific queries the ads were shown for, and the second lets advertisers compare their performance with competitors in the auction. Microsoft does not specify exactly when between May and October these reports became available.

The rollout of the Search term landing page report begins in mid-November. It shows which page of the website the system sent a user to for a specific query. This is especially important for Performance Max, since the campaign can send traffic to pages other than those specified by the advertiser.

Messaging Guidelines for AI-Generated Text

Messaging Guidelines are available in open pilot for Performance Max campaigns and Search campaigns with AI Max enabled. An advertiser can set up to 40 rules that guide the generation of ad text.

Microsoft recommends using them primarily for general restrictions: which claims, topics, concepts, tone, and wording are not allowed. As an example, the company cites a premium retailer with the rule "Never imply that products are low cost." In addition to prohibitions, advertisers can describe preferred wording, topics, and tone. The rules are set during campaign creation.

Before this, control over generated text in Microsoft Advertising was limited to excluding individual words through Term exclusions, where up to 25 values can be specified. The comparable Google Ads tool, Text guidelines, combines up to 25 excluded terms and up to 40 meaning-based restrictions, but Microsoft also accepts positive instructions on tone and wording.

In the November newsletter, Microsoft added an important caveat. Text generation relies on the advertiser's existing assets and landing pages, so a rule that contradicts these materials will most likely not be followed as a strict restriction. The company also advises writing rules in plain language and avoiding internal brand jargon.

Conversions API in General Availability

Previously, the Conversions API in Microsoft Advertising was enabled by request for individual accounts. Now the tool is generally available.

It sends conversions from websites, apps, CRMs, and point-of-sale systems to Microsoft Advertising in real time through a server-side connection. The API works together with the Universal Event Tracking (UET) tag and supplements data that the browser tag may fail to capture due to browser restrictions.

The API can be connected directly, through Google Tag Manager, or through technology partners. The announcement lists Adobe Real-Time CDP, Commanders Act, Freshpaint, Invoca, MetaRouter, Segment by Twilio, Stape.io, Switch Growth, Tealium, and Zeotap. According to the technical documentation, the server accepts events no older than 90 days, up to 1,000 events can be sent in a single batch, and double counting of conversions from UET and the API is prevented with a shared eventId parameter. User consent to the advertising use of data is passed with the adStorageConsent parameter.

Implications for E-commerce, B2B, and Agencies

Advertisers have gained more control over Performance Max: demographic settings, search term and auction data, and, starting in mid-November, the link between queries and landing pages. Messaging Guidelines and audience exclusions remain pilots for now, and the statuses of device targeting and full age and gender targeting differ across Microsoft's materials, so their availability needs to be checked in the account.

For e-commerce, the most practical features are the search terms report, brand exclusions for text ads only, and passing offline sales through the Conversions API. B2B companies can send qualified leads and deals from their CRM so that automated bidding strategies optimize for the actual value of leads. Agencies get tools for auditing Performance Max and controlling AI-generated text within brand requirements.