If you considering running online ads, and you are wondering if Microsoft Bing Advertising is as good as it seems, I already did so you won't have to.
When I finally decided to try advertising online with Microsoft, I was excited for the fact that unlike Google, there is someone that you can actually talk to, a human ...
When you begin, you will be contacted by "Account Manager" or support which sounded great at the beginning. The UI, not impressive but OK. You can learn it and get used to it after sometime.
The setup is pretty much similar to Google Ads in almost everything. Their keyword suggestions aren't that great but after some tweaking,you kind of get the hang of it.
I finished setting up everything, and next morning, it all started ....
I opened my inbox and found an email from Microsoft of "Egregious Policy Violation". It was a very vague email telling me that I violated one of their policies and then they put a list of 10s of reasons of why the violation took place without any specific or extra details.
I contacted their support about the email and asked them to tell me what the violation was, and how can I fix it. However, I was shocked to learn that the support people had no idea what the violation is. They said it was their "Policy team".
Just like Google Ads, you see an appeal form. I filled the form without even knowing what the violation was on hope they will have another look and help me somehow.
Few hours later, they said it was a mistake and my access was restored to the account.
the following 3 weeks, it was all about learning, tweaking and creating new campaigns for my products.
I was feeling relaxed and had a peace of mind, just to wake up the next morning with another "Egregious policy violation" email.
I was absolutely furious for the fact that I know that all my business is fully legitimate. I tried reaching out to them with anger and frustration for not even knowing again what the issue was.
Their support, as usual, had no idea and asked me to submit an appeal form again!!
After going back and forth, they doubled down and said that I'm banned for violating their terms without providing any reason. I was literally treated like trash without even knowing why or what happened.
So, eventually I decided to move to another platform. I asked them to close my account. I was absolutely dumb for even asking them this since they responded that they are unable to till I resolve the issue they banned me for.
I realized that Microsoft Advertising is a big scam and there are countless other content creators who had similar awful experiences as mine; I finally decided to put all their emails in my spam folder; and moved on with my life to other platforms such as TikTok and others.
I'm sorry if you thought that Microsoft or Bing Advertising are going to be better. My recommendation is to stay away from them.
Do not allow platforms to take us for granted as small businesses or small creators.
Do not waste your time experimenting, do not repeat my mistake. I'd argue that you are better off spending as much time as you could to research the best platforms and which ones are indie friendly because most of those big famous platforms will treat you like garbage if you are not a big mega corporation or have millions of dollars to spend.
We need alternatives to those terrible platforms, and before we finally have a small business friendly platform, they will keep treating us like this.
I won't dive deeper into the lack of professionalism in Microsoft.
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