Marketers can now use LinkedIn category data for targeting through Bing search

Advertisers are now able to leverage LinkedIn data for search campaigns on the Bing Ads platform. Microsoft made the announcement in a blog post on Tuesday.

Why you should care

Two years ago, Microsoft bought LinkedIn, and Bing advertisers have been eager for access to its audience data. Earlier this year, the company launched Microsoft Audience Network ads with access to some LinkedIn targeting data. Now it will be available to all Bing Ads advertisers.

The company says that advertisers using data from LinkedIn categories of company, job function and industry will be more efficient and more precise in their targeting.

From the blog post: “We are making this easy for our clients to get started right away through the Bing Ads platform using familiar campaign creation and management tools. To start we’re offering bid-only targeting, with exclusions coming soon. It works across text ads, shopping, and basically all Bing search products (available in the U.S. only).”

More about the news

• It’s a lot of data. LinkedIn has more than 575 million global members.
• The MSAN includes native ad inventory on MSN.com, Microsoft Outlook and the Microsoft Edge browser, as well as syndication partner sites with Microsoft Audience Ads.
• MSAN uses artificial intelligence (AI) to optimize ad selection and relevancy, as well as pricing, click and conversion predictions. The Microsoft Graph underpins the audience targeting data available to MSAN, including web and search activity, demographic and consumer behavior activity, and certain LinkedIn profile dimensions.

This story first appeared on Search Engine Land. For more on search marketing and SEO, click here.

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About The Author

Robin Kurzer

Robin Kurzer started her career as a daily newspaper reporter in Milford, Connecticut. She then made her mark on the advertising and marketing world in Chicago at agencies such as Tribal DDB and Razorfish, creating award-winning work for many major brands. For the past seven years, she’s worked as a freelance writer and communications professional across a variety of business sectors.