How to import Google Ads campaigns into Microsoft Advertising

The fastest way to start on Microsoft Advertising (Bing ads and its network) is to import the campaigns you already run on Google Ads. The official tool does it in minutes and can repeat on a schedule, but there are details worth knowing to avoid surprises with bids, budgets or campaigns that switch themselves back on.

The three ways to import

According to Microsoft's official documentation, under Import › Import from Google Ads you have:

If you choose Quick import but your manager account holds more than one Google Ads account or a Merchant Center account, Microsoft automatically takes you to the Smart import flow. From a manager account you can import up to 10 Google Ads accounts at once.

Step by step

1. In Microsoft Advertising, open Import › Import from Google Ads.
2. Choose Quick import or Customize.
3. Sign in to Google and grant access. Microsoft says it uses those credentials only for the import.
4. If customising: select account, campaigns and ad groups (tick "Show paused ad groups" if you want paused ones too), currency conversion and items to import.
5. Set a name and schedule. With an automatic schedule, Microsoft repeats the import regularly to sync changes from Google Ads.
6. Check the result under Import › Import schedule & history.

What to review after importing

• Bids and budgets: Microsoft has different minimums and, by default, raises bids and budgets that fall short. You can opt out, but campaigns below the minimum are then not imported.
• Targeting: location and time-of-day targeting work very differently on each platform; Microsoft recommends always reviewing them.
• Negatives: Microsoft doesn't use broad match negatives; Google's are imported as phrase match negatives.
• Videos: because of YouTube's terms of service, the video file in video campaigns is not imported; you have to upload it yourself.
• Quality score: it is calculated differently, so optimisations on one platform don't always apply to the other.

Best practices

• One Google Ads account into one Microsoft Advertising account. Microsoft recommends it: importing several into one raises the risk of hitting the account-level keyword limit.
• Import in batches if you exceed account limits.
• 2-step verification: if your Google account uses it and the import fails, Microsoft says to create an app-specific password or import from a file.
• "Run now" re-imports items that didn't change in Google but did in Microsoft; a scheduled import only fetches what changed in Google since the last run.
• For errors, download the error file and fix campaign-level errors before ad-group-level ones.

What about the API?

If you manage many accounts, the Microsoft Advertising API has a Google Ads import guide with schedulable import jobs and statistics on what was added, updated, deleted or failed per entity type.