Platforms in this story
In short
- LinkedIn profile targeting (company, industry, job function, seniority) does not narrow the audience: Microsoft describes it as "bid only", it adjusts bids.
- Since September 30, 2026, a LinkedIn company list can hold up to 10,000 entreprises↗, up from 1,000.
- The Google Ads import copies the structure, and a scheduled import can then put budgets and settings back to what they are in Google Ads.
- Microsoft publishes very low floors: €0.05↗ a day and €5↗ a month in euros. The real threshold is elsewhere: 30 conversions sur 30 jours↗ for automated bidding.
Microsoft Advertising carries little weight in most media plans, but it is the platform where you can target a job role or a company without going through LinkedIn Ads. Here is how I read its documentation: what the platform states in black and white, what it leaves vague, and what I would check in an account before proposing a budget to a B2B advertiser or an agency.
10,000entreprises
Companies per LinkedIn list
Microsoft Advertising · checked October 9, 2026↗
10niveaux
LinkedIn seniority levels
Microsoft Advertising · checked October 9, 2026↗
€0.05
Minimum daily budget (EUR)
Microsoft Advertising · checked October 9, 2026↗
30conversions sur 30 jours
Automated bidding conversion threshold
Microsoft Advertising · checked October 9, 2026↗
What targeting options does Microsoft Advertising offer?
Microsoft's "Audience targeting" page lists eleven families: in-market audiences, LinkedIn profile targeting, similar audiences, predictive targeting, remarketing, auto-generated remarketing lists, impression-based remarketing, dynamic remarketing, Customer Match (email addresses), custom audiences, and combined lists using AND, OR, NOT logic↗. The same page shows a headline figure: using any type of audience targeting would give 50%↗ higher conversion on average, but the footnote says it is Microsoft internal data, global, search, September 2022. It is the platform's own number, more than four years old, with no method: I would not carry it into a recommendation as is.
How does LinkedIn profile targeting work?
Microsoft presents itself as the only platform, apart from LinkedIn, that lets you target by LinkedIn profile: company, industry and job function. It is available for Search, Dynamic Search, Shopping, Audience and Performance Max campaigns, with one caveat: not every account has access for Performance Max yet↗.
The point to keep in mind before building a structure: this targeting does not narrow the audience. The help page says so plainly: targeting a company does not exclude people who work elsewhere, and Microsoft compares it to remarketing in "bid only" mode, as opposed to "target and bid". You set a bid adjustment on each company, industry or function; your ads keep showing to everyone else. My reasoning: to reserve a campaign for a specific population, you therefore have to rely on tightly qualified keywords, with LinkedIn targeting used to pay more for the clicks you care about.
The documentation gives two numerical limits. A campaign or ad group cannot target more than 1,000 entreprises↗, and company lists are entered by hand in the platform: importing them from a file or another platform is not supported as of the page's date. Microsoft also warns that not all companies, industries and job functions are available.
On the news side, Microsoft's post of September 30, 2026 raises list size: up to 10,000 entreprises↗ per list, up from 1,000, which you can add during campaign setup or in the audience library↗. The August 2026 post adds job seniority targeting, with 10 niveaux↗ (from CXO to volunteer), announced as generally available for Audience ads and Search campaigns↗.
A useful caveat for an advertiser in France: the help page points to a country availability page that I could not open (a 404 error when I tried), and the market lists published by third parties differ. I therefore claim nothing about France: the test is in your account, with an ad group open and the targeting tab visible.
Can you import Google Ads campaigns, and what happens next?
Yes. The documentation describes an import that starts with a credential ID linking your Google Ads and Microsoft Advertising access, then the choice of account, campaigns and options↗. By default Microsoft imports "most" supported campaigns, ads, targets, extensions and settings, and the page adds that not everything comes across: it is up to you to check the result and add back what is missing. Microsoft's February 2025 post lists Performance Max campaigns, Audience ads, Shopping and Merchant Center feeds among what can be imported, and mentions three modes (Quick Import, Smart Import, Advanced Import) without detailing the difference↗.
The options that matter for a budget: you can raise Microsoft budgets by a percentage relative to Google (the documentation's example is +25%↗), stop the update of budgets already in Microsoft, or delete what was removed on the Google side. Frequency is your choice: automatic, once, daily, weekly or monthly.
The trap is on the budget page: an automated import "reactivates campaigns and sets settings back to what they are on Google Ads, including the budget", at the frequency you set↗. If you adjusted a budget or paused a campaign in Microsoft, a scheduled import can undo your change. I treat it as a checkpoint, not a flaw: the account's change history lets you find the cause. On the Google side, for broad match, AI Max and automation, the guide Google Ads in fall 2026 covers what changes in the campaigns you export.
What minimum budgets does Microsoft publish?
The currency documentation gives, for a euro account, a minimum daily budget of €0.05↗, a minimum monthly budget of €5↗ and a minimum bid of €0.05↗, with the note that these values are "subject to change"↗. These are technical floors, not recommendations: nobody generates B2B leads on €5↗ a month.
What the documentation says about how budgets work is more useful. The daily budget is a target, not a hard cap: Microsoft writes that overspend usually stays under 100%↗ above the daily limit, and that a month's spend does not exceed the calculated monthly budget (daily budget multiplied by the number of days in the month)↗. If you change the budget after the first day of the month, the calculation becomes: month-to-date spend, plus the daily budget multiplied by the days remaining. A lifetime budget exists only for Audience campaigns.
The threshold that really weighs on a small account is elsewhere. Maximize Conversions and Target CPA require a UET tag and a conversion goal, and the page warns that below 30 conversions sur 30 jours↗, the strategy stops optimizing bids. My reasoning, to be read as such: a B2B account that gets ten leads a month will stay under this threshold, and does better starting on manual or enhanced CPC before moving to automated bidding. In the pages I read, Microsoft gives no "reasonable" minimum budget figure.
What other 2026 updates should you know?
- August 27, 2026: AI Max for Search campaigns is announced as generally available, an optional suite of Search features↗.
- October 1, 2026: Max CPC is no longer offered when creating new non-portfolio campaigns on automated bidding (see the dedicated news item).
- September 30, 2026: optimization experiments (A/B tests on bidding, targeting and creative) are announced as generally available for Search, Shopping, Audience and Performance Max campaigns; an integration with the HubSpot CRM launches; the SOAP API will be fully deprecated on January 31, 2027↗, so connectors must move to the REST API↗.