Quick Microsoft Ads Wins Most Advertisers Miss | Nikki Kuhlman | PPC Zone April 2026

Why It Matters

These optimizations unlock hidden budget efficiency and expand reach, giving advertisers a cost‑effective channel in a competitive paid‑search landscape.

Key Takeaways

• Turn off Microsoft ads from midnight to business morning hours.
• Apply a -20% mobile bid modifier; monitor per campaign.
• Use smart bidding: start ECPC, then max conversions, add CPA.
• Exclude low‑performing partner sites using curated exclusion lists.
• Treat Microsoft as distinct platform; apply day‑parting, mobile, bidding, hygiene.

Summary

The April 2026 PPC Zone session features Jumpfly VP Nikki Kman revealing quick, low‑effort Microsoft Ads tactics most advertisers overlook. She stresses treating Microsoft as a separate platform rather than a Google clone.

Kman outlines four core practices: day‑parting to pause campaigns from midnight until business hours, applying a –20% mobile bid modifier, progressing through smart‑bidding stages (ECPC → Max Conversions → CPA), and rigorously excluding under‑performing partner sites using a curated list. She cites examples such as a 90% tablet‑spend shift that hurt conversions and the impact of negative bid adjustments during low‑intent hours.

Key quotes include, “Microsoft ads reward advertisers who treat it as a distinct platform,” and she shares a 300‑site exclusion list, noting that DuckDuckGo can still be valuable. Even with as few as ten conversions in 30 days, she recommends moving to Max Conversion strategies and setting a maximum CPC to cap spend.

Implementing these steps can revive stagnant Microsoft campaigns, improve ROI, and justify allocating 10‑25% of paid‑search budgets to the platform, giving marketers a cost‑effective avenue for growth beyond Google.

Original Description

Low Effort, High Impact: Quick Microsoft Ads Wins Most Advertisers Miss

Nikki Kuhlman has been deep in paid search since almost the start of the industry, starting in-house in 2002. She’s been at JumpFly since 2005 and is the VP of Search, managing a team of 24. She also manages B2B and B2C clients across all industries. Ecommerce clients are a specialty; she started the Feed Management division at JumpFly in 2016 because she saw the need for companies to improve their data. She’s a big proponent of looking at a client’s overall marketing strategy, not just how her “piece” of the pie is performing.

You can find him on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikkikuhlman/

For more from the April 2026 event, visit https://ppc.zone/events/ppc-zone-april-2026

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