At the end of April this year, Microsoft held its annual conference, Elevate. While they certainly had a lot to talk about, one of the big new announcements was the introduction of Unified Smart, a single source wherein a business can manage all of its advertising needs across multiple platforms. If it sounds too good to be true, think again. This tool simplifies the digital advertising experience. And the best part is that Unified Smart Campaigns do not require subscriptions or upfront payments to use. You only pay in when someone clicks your ad link.
How It Works
Unified Smart is not available to everyone just yet. A quick review of their webpage suggests that it is beginning to roll out now and will be expanding shortly. Those interested in participating early should apply to be part of the beta test by clicking here. If your business information matches what Microsoft is looking for, you will receive early access to this exciting new advertising experience.
All your business has to do to start the process is enter your business URL. Unified Smart will then use the information from your website to create suggested advertising campaigns. These suggested ads and campaigns are completely editable by your business. Unified Smart will provide keyword suggestions for targeted campaigns, it will tailor marketing to relevant topics and target within social media, and it can be customized to fit your business’s advertising budget.
Advertisers can manage their ad campaigns for the major social media networks, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and even Google. What this means is that instead of building and managing ad campaigns in multiple locations, everything is managed in a single place. The biggest benefit of this, outside of time saved, is budgeting. Unified Smart is the single source for your ad budgeting. Gone are the days of hunting down receipts for each ad campaign on each different platform. Microsoft Unified Smart campaigns will monitor all clicks across all platforms. Then, they compile that information, and charge your account in a single location.
The Metrics
There are several metrics that Microsoft provides within Unified Smart to allow you to improve your advertising campaigns. These metrics include:
Impressions: how visible your ads are across platforms
Clicks: Measure of how many times consumer clicked your ads
Direct Inquiries: this only appears if your ad campaign goal is “visits to my physical business locations,” then this displays the number of clicks for direct inquiries.
Calls: number of calls generated by the ad campaign, which is only tracked if your ad campaign goal is “phone calls to my business.”
Conversions: tracks total visits to certain pages of your site
Spending: how much you have spent on the ad campaign over time
Engagement: tracks the total number of incoming calls, messages, or comments across platforms that your ad has generated
Helping You Understand
In addition, Microsoft provides reporting capabilities within Unified Smart to help you better understand your ad campaign performance across platforms over time. With all of these tools available, it is no wonder that many businesses are excited to try Unified Smart for themselves.