• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, November 3, 2020

Supporting advertisers specifically during holiday events, Microsoft said it will release its seasonal shopping segments this month.

Company developers said Microsoft plans to do more than release Black Friday segments and call it a day.

The first batch will come in the form of Black Friday market segments — in-store and online — for English-speaking markets, but the segments will expand into the other top international markets soon.

While it's unknown whether the Black Friday segments will make it into other markets in time, developers at Microsoft are trying to do a better job of tying seasonal events to retail, shopping and advertising. Developers have been building a pipeline to develop custom segments for any seasonal event.

Events will include tax season, Mother’s Day, sporting events, travel season, and back-to-school -- any type of event that ties a seasonal event to shopping.

Advertisers will set up targeting and have the same features as other in-market segments such as auto and travel.

Microsoft also continues to invest in audience targeting. The company recently shared information around its investments in features that help marketers integrate and import data into other platforms including Google.

Then there are turnkey targeting features supported by artificial intelligence, as well as high-quality volume in and outside of search.

The three features include Customer Match, Custom Combination Lists, and Google Import for Audiences.

Google Import for Audiences, which launched in October, helps marketers save time and scale remarketing strategies such as complex rules including custom combination lists.

Advertisers, who do the work once and use two platforms, typically have minimal audience lists set up. Sometimes they have none. This helps remove delays in getting remarketing strategies up and running.

Customer Match allows advertisers to use their first-party data such as the data that comes from people visiting physical or ecommerce stores and websites. The data is segmented and combined with email data to use the information in targeting on Microsoft properties.

It’s different from Custom Combination Lists, which allows marketers to combine existing audience features, making it more efficient to target to upsell and cross-sell.