Should You Run Performance Max on Microsoft Ads? What Changed in 2026

Yes, for most businesses already profitable on Google Ads, Performance Max on Microsoft Advertising is now worth testing, provided your conversion tracking is solid. The main objection used to be that it was a black box: you could not see search terms, could not add negative keywords and could not see where your ads ran. Over 2026 Microsoft has closed most of those gaps, and its October 28 update added search term reporting, auction insights, age and gender targeting and a generally available Conversions API.

This guide walks through what changed this year, who Microsoft Performance Max suits and who should wait, the controls you now have, how to set it up so it does not spend on the wrong traffic, and how to judge results after the first few weeks. Everything about features and availability below comes from Microsoft's own product announcements, so you can check each point yourself.

What Changed in Microsoft Performance Max in 2026

Microsoft has been shipping Performance Max updates almost every month this year. Taken one at a time they look small. Taken together they change the answer to whether the campaign type is safe to run for a small or mid-sized business.

January: more search themes and share of voice: Microsoft raised the limit to 50 search themes per campaign, double the previous limit, and added impression share metrics, including share lost to budget and to rank. Those share of voice figures cover search and shopping inventory only.
March: negative keywords: You can now apply negative keyword lists at campaign or account level, with up to 5,000 negatives per list. Match types behave the same way they do in standard Search campaigns, and you can import negatives from Google Ads.
April and May: landing page and placement reporting: Microsoft added landing page (Final URL) reporting with spend, clicks and conversion metrics, plus a Website URL (publisher) report showing conversions, clicks and spend for the sites your ads appeared on.
August: previews and exclusions: The Ad Preview Hub became generally available for Performance Max, and age and gender exclusions rolled out. Microsoft also made AI Max for Search generally available as an optional set of features for Search campaigns.
October: reporting, targeting and measurement: The October 28 update brought search term reporting and auction insights, made age and gender targeting generally available, started rolling out device targeting, opened a pilot for audience exclusions and made the Conversions API generally available.

There is one more change worth knowing about if you manage bids by hand. From October 1, 2026, new campaigns that are not part of a portfolio and use Maximize Conversions, Maximize Conversion Value or Maximize Clicks no longer get the Max CPC setting. Campaigns created before that date keep it. If you relied on a CPC cap to stop runaway costs, you will need a different safety net in new campaigns, which in practice means tighter targets, tighter exclusions and closer monitoring.

Who Should Run Microsoft Performance Max (and Who Should Wait)

Performance Max is an automated campaign that decides which placements, audiences and ad combinations to use based on the conversion goal you give it. That only works if the goal is accurate. So the deciding question is not your industry, it is whether you can feed it reliable conversion data.

Good fit

You already convert profitably on Google Ads: If your Google Search or Performance Max campaigns hit target, you have proof that your offer, landing pages and tracking work. Microsoft is then a channel expansion, not an experiment from scratch.
You sell products with a clean feed: Retailers with a Microsoft Merchant Center feed get shopping inventory alongside search, which is where Microsoft's negative keywords and share of voice data now apply.
You have real conversion values: Ecommerce revenue, or lead values imported from your CRM, give the bidding something meaningful to optimise towards.
Your audience skews towards desktop and work hours: In accounts we audit, Microsoft traffic for B2B and professional services often behaves differently from Google traffic, which is a good reason to test it with its own budget and targets.

Better to wait

You do not yet track phone calls, form fills or purchases correctly. Fix that first, because the campaign will optimise towards whatever you tell it is a conversion.
Your Google Ads account is not profitable. Copying a losing setup to another platform usually loses money twice.
Your total paid budget is very small and already stretched. A well run Search campaign with exact and phrase match is easier to control and to learn from.

The Controls You Now Have, and Their Limits

This is where most of the old criticism no longer applies. Here is what you can actually control in a Microsoft Performance Max campaign today, and where the gaps still are.

Search terms and auction insights: Search term reporting and auction insights are now available for Performance Max. Microsoft says landing page data within the search term report starts rolling out from mid-November 2026, so you will be able to see which query led to which page.
Negative keywords: Up to 5,000 per list, at campaign or account level. The important limit: they apply only to search and shopping inventory, not to the rest of the network.
Placement exclusions: The Website URL report shows where ads ran, with conversions, clicks and spend. If a site is not suitable for your brand, Microsoft's route is an account-level URL exclusion list.
Landing page control: Landing page reporting lets you check that final URL expansion is sending people to relevant pages. If it is not, Microsoft points you to URL rules or custom labels to steer it.
Demographics and devices: Age and gender targeting is generally available and you can exclude age brackets and genders. Device targeting, to include or exclude device types, is rolling out to all advertisers in the coming weeks.
Audience exclusions: These are in open pilot. You need to ask your Microsoft account team or Support to join.
Brand exclusions: Microsoft says it is refining brand exclusions so you can apply them to text ads only while still showing product ads on brand searches. Until that is live in your account, check search terms for your own brand name regularly.

Performance Max on Microsoft is no longer a black box. The question has shifted from whether you can see what it does to whether you are checking it every week.

How to Set Up Microsoft Performance Max Properly

Microsoft's new AI-powered campaign creation flow can build a first Performance Max campaign from your website, plus any marketing plans, brand guidelines and product images you upload. It produces an editable summary of your business, and you can adjust budget, bidding, copy and creative before launch. It is a quick starting point, but treat the output as a draft. These are the steps we follow.

Get measurement right before anything else: Install the UET tag and confirm your conversion goals fire once per real action. Then look at the Conversions API, which is now generally available. It sends conversions server to server from your website, app, CRM or point of sale and works alongside UET. You can connect it directly, through Google Tag Manager or through a technology partner. Note that Microsoft's developer guide still lists some partner connections as early access or coming soon, so confirm your partner is live before relying on it.
Choose one primary goal: Pick the action that actually makes you money, such as a purchase, a booked call or a qualified lead. Counting newsletter sign-ups or page views as primary goals teaches the campaign to chase cheap, low value actions.
Add your negative keyword lists on day one: Start with an account-level list of terms you never want: jobs, free, DIY, training, competitor names you do not want to pay for, and anything already excluded in your Google account. You can import negatives from Google Ads rather than rebuilding them.
Use search themes deliberately: You can add up to 50. Use them to describe the services or product groups you sell, in the words customers use, rather than stuffing in every keyword variation.
Write messaging guidelines if you can: Microsoft now lets you set up to 40 guidelines to steer AI-generated ad copy, currently in open pilot for Performance Max and for Search campaigns with AI Max enabled. Use them for things the copy must never say, such as prices you cannot guarantee, claims your industry regulator restricts, or service areas you do not cover.
Preview before you publish: Open the Ad Preview Hub and look at how your assets combine. If a headline reads badly next to a particular image, fix it now rather than after it has spent money.
Set a realistic target, or none at first: If the campaign has little conversion history, start with Maximize Conversions or Maximize Conversion Value without a target, then add a target CPA or ROAS once it has a few weeks of steady data. Because Max CPC is no longer offered for new campaigns of this kind, watch average CPC closely in the first fortnight.

If you are moving an existing Google Performance Max campaign across, the import tools now carry over more than they used to, including new customer acquisition goals and larger asset groups. Still check every setting after import. Budgets, locations and conversion goals are the three we see go wrong most often.

How to Judge Results After the First Month

Automated campaigns need time and data, and Microsoft itself talks about allowing a few weeks or conversion cycles before judging performance. In practice that means not touching targets or assets every few days. What you should do every week is read the reports that did not exist a year ago.

Search term report: Look for irrelevant queries and add them as negatives. Look for your own brand name too. If a large share of conversions come from brand searches, the campaign may be taking credit for customers who would have found you anyway.
Website URL report: Sort by spend. Any site with meaningful spend and no conversions, or one you would not want your brand on, goes on your URL exclusion list.
Landing page report: Check that conversions come from pages that should convert. Spend on blog posts, careers pages or policy pages usually means final URL expansion needs reining in.
Auction insights and impression share: These show who you compete with and whether you are losing visibility to budget or to rank. Lost to budget on a profitable campaign is a reason to increase spend. Lost to rank points to bids, targets or asset quality.
Your own sales data: Compare Microsoft's reported conversions with what your CRM or store actually recorded. If the two drift apart, fix tracking before you scale.

A fair test, in our view, is one where Microsoft Performance Max is measured against the same cost per acquisition or ROAS target you use on Google, over a period long enough to cover your normal sales cycle. If it meets the target, increase budget gradually. If it falls well short after that period and the reports show no obvious waste to cut, it is reasonable to pause it and keep Microsoft to standard Search campaigns.

When to Get Help

You can set up Microsoft Performance Max yourself if your tracking is clean and you have time to review search terms, placements and landing pages every week. The setup itself is not the hard part. The weekly checking and the judgement about when to change targets are where most accounts drift.

If you are already spending on Google Ads and want a second channel tested properly, or you are not sure your conversion tracking is good enough for automated bidding, that is a sensible point to bring in a specialist. At LUCEDS we usually start with a tracking audit, because no campaign type, on any platform, can fix bad data.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can you see search terms in Microsoft Ads Performance Max?

Yes. Microsoft added search term reporting for Performance Max during 2026, first as search term insights and then in the standard search term report. Its October 28, 2026 update confirmed search term reporting and auction insights are available, and said landing page data within the search term report starts rolling out from mid-November 2026. That means you can see which queries triggered your ads and, once the rollout reaches your account, which pages those queries led to. Review it weekly and add irrelevant queries to your negative keyword lists.

Can I add negative keywords to Microsoft Performance Max?

Yes. Since March 2026 you can apply negative keyword lists to Performance Max at campaign or account level, with up to 5,000 negative keywords per list. Negative match types work the same way they do in standard Search campaigns, and you can import negatives from Google Ads, the API or Microsoft Advertising Editor. The key limitation is that these negatives only apply to search and shopping inventory within Performance Max. For other placements, use the Website URL report and an account-level URL exclusion list instead.

Is Microsoft Performance Max the same as Google Performance Max?

They work on the same idea: one campaign, one conversion goal, and automated decisions about placements, audiences and ad combinations. The controls and reports are not identical, though, and features arrive at different times on each platform. Microsoft now offers search terms, negative keywords, placement and landing page reports, age and gender targeting, and messaging guidelines for AI-written copy, with device targeting and audience exclusions on the way. Do not assume a setting exists just because you use it on Google. Check it in your Microsoft account before launch.

Do I need the Microsoft Conversions API to run Performance Max?

It is not required, but it is worth setting up. The UET tag records conversions in the browser, and the Conversions API, generally available since October 2026, sends them server to server from your website, app, CRM or point of sale. It works alongside UET rather than replacing it. Automated bidding is only as good as the conversion data it receives, so sending more complete data generally helps. You can connect directly, through Google Tag Manager or via a technology partner, but confirm your partner's integration is live first.

What happened to Max CPC in Microsoft Ads?

From October 1, 2026, new campaigns that are not part of a portfolio bid strategy and use Maximize Conversions, Maximize Conversion Value or Maximize Clicks no longer have the Max CPC setting. Campaigns created before that date keep it, and portfolio strategies still offer it. If you used Max CPC as a cost safety net, plan other controls for new campaigns: realistic CPA or ROAS targets once data allows, a sensible daily budget, strong negative keyword lists and close monitoring of average CPC in the first weeks.

How long should I test Microsoft Performance Max before deciding?

Give it enough time to collect steady conversion data and to cover at least one normal sales cycle for your business. Microsoft's own guidance talks about allowing a few weeks or conversion cycles before judging performance. During that time, avoid changing targets and assets every few days, because each change resets what the campaign is learning. Do review search terms, placements and landing pages weekly to cut obvious waste. Then compare results against the same CPA or ROAS target you use on Google before deciding to scale or pause.

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