• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, April 5, 2022

Microsoft Advertising executives believe automation can improve productivity, and often talk about the future in code and advertising.

On Tuesday, the company announced that marketers using Responsive Search Ads (RSAs) will soon have the ability to automatically create ads featuring additional product information in the ad copy without having to manually change it. Ad customizers should become available this quarter.

Ad customizers aim to reduce ad setup time and improve the quality of the message based on the search query by allowing marketers to create hundreds of different ad variations with one set of ad copy such as descriptions and title. Ad customizers are parameters within the ad copy that get replaced by dynamic text when the ad serves up online based on the search query. The text values provided in the feed file are selected based on the targeting defined in the feed.

The move lets marketers combine RSAs with custom attributes for real-time messaging. The change lets marketers create ads that highlights a sale or event promotion on a specific weekend, embed discounts into ads based on the campaign, or focus on particular features based on search queries.

The custom attributes available for ad customizers include text such as product names, categories and descriptions. Numbers like inventory count, and the number of colors available for a specific item. Price focuses on product cost and sale discounts, and percent looks at discount rate and interest rate.

The platform will enable marketers to either create custom attributes in Microsoft Advertising online or upload a customizer feed.

The company also announced that RSA is now supported in Microsoft’s mobile apps for Apple, and Android.

Microsoft also highlighted other announcements today. Smart Campaigns geared toward small businesses will become available in more countries such as Canada, France, and Germany.

Microsoft Audience Ads, the company’s native advertising options, will become available in 39 additional countries, including India, the Philippines, Singapore, Japan, Taiwan, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Lithuania, Monaco, Montenegro, Poland, Portugal, Romania, San Marino, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Turkey, and Vatican City.