Microsoft Performance Max Campaigns: What B2B Marketers Need to Know

Microsoft Performance Max is an automated campaign type in Microsoft Advertising that runs search, native, display, audience and shopping ads from a single campaign, with Microsoft’s AI deciding where each ad appears. For B2B advertisers it can widen reach and simplify management, but it also removes some of the controls that matter most when buyers are a small group of senior decision-makers. Below we explain how it works, where it fits alongside your other campaigns and what to set up first, drawing on how we run paid media and search marketing for B2B organisations.

Performance Max has changed a good deal since Microsoft first released it, with negative keywords, Google import support and new Search features all arriving in the last year. The points below reflect the platform as it stands in October 2026, so some older advice about the campaign type no longer applies. The short version for a B2B marketer is set out first.

• Performance Max runs one campaign across Microsoft inventory, including Bing, MSN, Edge and Copilot placements.
• It uses asset groups, audience signals and search themes instead of ad groups and keywords.
• LinkedIn profile targeting by company, industry or job function is not available in Performance Max.
• Negative keywords are now supported, but they only apply to search and shopping inventory.
• Results depend on conversion tracking that reflects lead quality, not just form submissions.

Each of these points shapes whether Performance Max deserves a share of your budget. The sections that follow explain them in more detail and show how they affect a typical B2B account.

What Is Microsoft Performance Max

Microsoft Performance Max is a goal-based campaign that pairs your creative assets with Microsoft’s automated targeting and bidding to find conversions across the whole Microsoft Advertising network. Microsoft’s Performance Max product page describes it as a campaign where you provide goals, budget, creative assets, audience signals and conversion tracking and Microsoft AI then optimises where and how your ads appear. The same page lists the inventory as search, native, display, audience, shopping and other eligible surfaces and it names Copilot among the Microsoft properties where ads can reach people.

The building blocks differ from a standard Search campaign. Microsoft’s technical documentation for Performance Max explains that asset groups replace the traditional ad group and ad, holding the headlines, long headlines, descriptions and images the system combines into ads. Instead of keywords, you guide search placements with search themes, which Microsoft describes as signals about the topics and services that matter to your business rather than terms you bid on directly.

For a B2B advertiser this means less day-to-day bid and placement management, but also less visibility into which query or placement produced each enquiry. That trade-off sits behind most of the decisions covered below.

How Performance Max Differs From Search and AI Max

Performance Max is a separate campaign type that optimises across many formats, while Search campaigns remain built around keywords and search intent. Microsoft has also introduced AI Max, which brings some of the same automation into Search campaigns without turning them into Performance Max.

According to Microsoft’s AI Max announcement, AI Max adds search term matching, text customisation and final URL expansion to standard Search campaigns, with brand inclusions and exclusions available as controls. The same post confirms that AI Max is switched on by default for new Search campaigns, although it can be turned off, so B2B teams building fresh Search campaigns should check that setting deliberately. The table below sets out how the main campaign types compare for a B2B account.

The LinkedIn column is the one that matters most for many B2B advertisers and it is easy to miss. Our Microsoft Ads guide for B2B covers the wider account structure that these campaign types sit within.

LinkedIn Targeting and Audience Signals in Performance Max

Performance Max does not support LinkedIn profile targeting, so you cannot point it at specific companies, industries or job functions. Microsoft’s API reference for the LinkedIn profile criterion lists Search, Shopping and Audience campaigns among the supported campaign types and the Performance Max guide states directly that profile criteria are not supported at campaign level.

This matters because LinkedIn profile data is one of the main reasons B2B advertisers use Microsoft Advertising at all. If your plan relies on reaching procurement managers, IT directors or finance leads at organisations of a certain size, those targeting rules belong in Search or Audience campaigns. Our article on LinkedIn integration in Microsoft Ads explains how those profile layers work in practice.

What Performance Max does accept is audience signals, attached to each asset group through an audience group. The Microsoft documentation for audience dimensions lists the supported types as remarketing lists, similar audiences, customer lists, custom audiences, in-market audiences, combined lists and product audiences. For B2B campaigns, customer lists built from CRM data and remarketing lists of people who visited service or pricing pages tend to be the most useful starting points.

Signals guide the system rather than restrict it. Microsoft’s product page is clear that audience signals do not limit the campaign to those people, so a well-built signal shortens the learning period but will not stop ads reaching consumers or job seekers if the conversion data rewards them.

Conversion Goals and Offline Data for Long Sales Cycles

Conversion tracking decides what Performance Max learns, so it should be in place and checked before the campaign goes live. Microsoft recommends setting up Universal Event Tracking (UET), choosing meaningful conversion goals and adding audience signals before launch, because the campaign optimises towards whichever actions you tell it are valuable.

For a B2B business, a form submission is a weak signal on its own. Many enquiries come from students, suppliers or companies outside your target market and an algorithm rewarded for volume will find more of them. The Performance Max documentation notes that UET is not required if you use an offline conversion goal and upload offline conversions, which means leads qualified in your CRM can be fed back so bidding learns from lead quality rather than raw enquiry numbers.

Consent is part of the same set-up in the UK. The ICO’s guidance on cookies and similar technologies requires clear information and consent for cookies that are not strictly necessary, such as advertising tags. Microsoft’s post on Advanced Consent Mode explains that UET must load before the consent banner with a default state of denied, so the tag can respect each choice while Microsoft models conversions that would otherwise be lost. A typical order of work looks like this.

That final step follows Microsoft’s own advice. Its product FAQs suggest launching without a strict target when conversion history is limited, then adding a target CPA or target ROAS once the campaign has collected enough data and they warn that frequent changes to budgets, bids, goals or assets can reset the learning period.

Building Asset Groups for Professional Audiences

Asset groups should be organised around a single service, audience or offer so that every combination Microsoft assembles still makes sense. Mixing unrelated services in one group produces ads where a headline about one offer appears next to an image or description about another, which undermines credibility with senior buyers.

Microsoft can generate asset recommendations from your website and its product page advises reviewing them for accuracy, brand fit, compliance and landing page relevance before relying on them. That review matters in B2B and regulated sectors, where an automatically written claim about outcomes or accreditation could create real problems. The Performance Max documentation also describes a final URL expansion setting that lets Microsoft send traffic to other pages on your domain, which is worth opting out of if certain pages, such as careers or support content, are poor destinations for paid clicks.

Different job functions respond to different messages, so it often helps to build separate asset groups for each buying role. An IT lead tends to look for integration and security detail, while a finance director looks for cost control and risk and the creative should reflect that.

Negative Keywords, Brand Traffic and Reporting

Microsoft now lets you add negative keywords to Performance Max, which gives B2B advertisers far more control over irrelevant searches than they had at launch. Its March 2026 product update confirms that negative keyword lists can be applied at campaign or account level, with up to 5,000 negatives per list and that negative match types behave the same way as they do in Search. The same update notes that negatives currently apply only to search and shopping inventory within Performance Max, so they will not stop native or display placements.

Brand traffic needs watching too. Performance Max can serve ads on searches for your company name that your Search campaigns would have captured anyway, which makes it look more effective than it is. Comparing branded search impression share and conversions before and after launch and adding brand terms as negatives where overlap is clear, keeps reporting honest.

Reporting should go beyond the platform dashboard. Microsoft points advertisers to conversions, cost per acquisition, search term insights and placement reporting where available, but the more useful comparison for B2B is between in-platform conversions and the leads your sales team qualifies. If the two diverge, the conversion goals or offline data need attention before budget increases.

When Performance Max Suits a B2B Account

Performance Max suits B2B accounts that already have reliable conversion tracking, a reasonable volume of qualified leads and a clear set of services. It is a weaker fit when the audience is small, the messaging is tightly regulated or the plan depends on role-based targeting. The cards below summarise the situations where it tends to help or hinder.

Many advertisers arrive at Performance Max through Google import. Microsoft confirms that eligible Performance Max elements can be imported from Google Ads, but it advises checking settings, budgets, bidding, asset groups, search themes, tracking and conversion goals after import, because an imported campaign is unlikely to be set up correctly for Microsoft’s network without review. Our comparison of Microsoft Ads and Google Ads for B2B covers the platform differences that make that review worthwhile.

How We Approach Performance Max for B2B Clients

In most B2B accounts, Performance Max belongs alongside Search and Audience campaigns rather than in place of them. Search keeps control of high-intent and branded queries, Search and Audience campaigns carry the LinkedIn profile targeting and Performance Max adds reach where the conversion data supports it.

Our Microsoft Ads management includes UET tag set-up, conversion goals, offline conversion imports, LinkedIn audience overlays and reporting into GA4. For Performance Max, we provide the creative assets, audience data and conversion tracking the platform depends on and we test automated bidding when it suits the campaign goal, always with manual oversight.

We review search term reports weekly, adding negatives and spotting new opportunities and that discipline now extends to the search and shopping side of Performance Max. If you are deciding whether Performance Max belongs in your account, the most useful starting point is an honest look at your conversion tracking and lead quality, because those decide how well any automated campaign performs.