Bing Ads Remarketing: The Retargeting You're Missing

Most ecommerce brands are sleeping on a quiet goldmine in their paid media strategy:
Dynamic remarketing in Microsoft Ads.

We recently ran a test for a client that turned into one of those “why didn’t we do this sooner?” moments. In just one week, we pulled in 39 direct conversions and hit a 726% ROAS – from a segment most advertisers ignore.

Let’s talk about what we did, why it worked, and how you can apply it.

The Problem with Google’s PMax – And What It Taught Us

If you’ve worked with Google’s Performance Max campaigns, you’ll know they hoover up just about everything – especially high-intent traffic. That includes remarketing audiences.

So while PMax is efficient, it often cannibalises traditional dynamic remarketing. Once you turn it on, those warm-funnel campaigns that used to convert well suddenly flatline.

We thought – what if the same rule applies in reverse for Microsoft?

Spoiler: it does.

The Microsoft Ads Setup That Actually Worked

Here’s the approach we took to build out a dynamic remarketing engine in Microsoft Ads:

1. Implemented Bing UET tags through Google Tag Manager – this was essential to track page visits and key events.
2. Built custom remarketing audiences based on cart abandonment, product views, and returning users.
3. Launched a Shopping (Audience) campaign, using these audiences to specifically retarget warm traffic.
4. Segmented and tested multiple audience groups to isolate top performers.

The result? A solid set of conversions at a healthy CPA, driven by first-time purchases.

Don’t Underestimate the View-Through Effect

View-through conversions don’t always get the credit they deserve, but they played a major role here. We saw over 200 additional conversions attributed to users who saw the ad and came back later.

That’s not just performance – that’s brand reinforcement.

When you’ve got someone back on your site, browsing products again, you’re no longer battling cold traffic. You’re building recall and trust.

Why Most Brands Miss This

It’s rare to see ecommerce brands actively using Microsoft dynamic remarketing. Most focus their spend on Google, Meta, or TikTok – and Microsoft ends up as an afterthought, used mainly for standard Shopping or branded search.

But here’s the thing – that’s exactly why it works.

The competition is low. Costs are stable. And your audiences are warm, familiar with your brand, and more likely to convert. If you’re ignoring this channel, there’s a good chance you’re leaving tens of thousands on the table every year.

The types of remarketing lists in Microsoft Ads

“Remarketing” in Microsoft Advertising is broader than most people assume. Before you build anything, it helps to know what’s on the menu, because dynamic remarketing is only one option. Microsoft Advertising supports several audience types:

• Remarketing lists – standard lists built from user actions on your site, such as people who viewed a page, visited one page but not another, or triggered a custom event.
• Dynamic remarketing lists – lists that pair users with the specific products they looked at, considered, added to cart, or bought. In the API these are still called “product audiences”, but the UI now labels them dynamic remarketing lists. This is the type used in the client test above.
• In-market audiences – curated lists that Microsoft builds itself, of people showing purchase intent in a category from their activity on Bing and Microsoft services. You don’t build these; you target and adjust bids on them.
• Customer match (customer lists) – audiences built by uploading your own customer contact data (such as email addresses). You have to accept the Customer Match terms before uploading data.
• Similar audiences – lists Microsoft generates automatically from a source remarketing list to find people who behave like your existing audience. (This is a pilot feature and can’t be created manually.)
• Combined lists and custom audiences – ways to merge audiences with AND/OR/NOT logic, or to bring in first-party segments through a data provider.

For the “I want to show product ads to people who nearly bought” job that most people mean by bing ads remarketing, you want dynamic remarketing lists. Here’s how to set them up.

How to set up dynamic remarketing in Microsoft Ads: step by step

Dynamic remarketing needs three things working together: a UET tag firing the right events, a product feed in Microsoft Merchant Center, and a campaign that can attach the audience. Miss any one and it won’t serve.

1. Create and install the UET tag. In Microsoft Advertising, create a single Universal Event Tracking (UET) tag, then add its tracking script to every page of your site. If you have a site-wide template or layout, add it there once. UET is the prerequisite for both conversion tracking and remarketing in paid search. You can add the code directly or deploy it through Google Tag Manager – GTM is simply a convenient container, not a requirement.
2. Add the dynamic remarketing parameters to the tag. Standard UET isn’t enough for dynamic remarketing. You must edit the UET script to send two extra parameters: ecomm_prodid and ecomm_pagetype. ecomm_prodid is the product ID for the item on the page and must match the id or item_group_id attribute in your product feed (numeric or alphanumeric with hyphens, up to 50 characters). ecomm_pagetype describes the page, using one of Microsoft’s valid values: home, searchresults, category, product, cart, purchase, or other.
3. Verify the tag is active. A remarketing list can’t collect users while its UET tag is Unverified or Inactive – Microsoft won’t receive the data it needs to build the list. Confirm the tag shows as active before you rely on it. (Usefully, the same UET tag you already have for conversion tracking can also validate your Merchant Center domain.)
4. Set up a Microsoft Merchant Center store and product feed. Dynamic remarketing serves product ads, so it needs product data. Create a Microsoft Merchant Center store, claim and verify your domain, and upload an approved product catalogue. Dynamic remarketing lists work best with campaigns that reference a Merchant Center store ID.
5. Build your dynamic remarketing lists. In the Shared Library’s Audiences section, create dynamic remarketing lists based on what people did – for example general visitors, product searchers, product viewers, shopping-cart abandoners, or past buyers. Set a membership duration for how far back Microsoft should look for matching actions: the range is 1 to 180 days, and if you don’t specify one it defaults to 30 days.
6. Create a Shopping or feed-based Audience campaign. Dynamic remarketing lists work best with Shopping campaigns and feed-based Audience campaigns – the campaign types that leverage your Merchant Center store.
7. Attach the audience as “target and bid”. By default, associating an audience only applies a bid adjustment while your ads still show to everyone. If you want ads to show only to people on the list, set the target setting to “target and bid” on the campaign or ad group. You can also attach lists as bid-only, or as exclusions to keep certain audiences out.

Minimum audience sizes and membership duration

Two practical thresholds catch people out before a campaign can serve:

• A remarketing list needs a minimum of 1,000 users (the minimum cookie pool) before Microsoft will start serving remarketed ads to it in paid search. On a low-traffic site, that can take a while to accumulate, so don’t panic if a fresh list sits idle at first.
• Membership duration runs from 1 to 180 days, defaulting to 30. Shorter windows keep the audience tighter and more recent; longer windows build volume. For considered or higher-ticket purchases, a longer window usually makes sense.

If you’re relying on similar audiences, note the source remarketing list needs active associations with at least 1,000 users before Microsoft will generate a similar audience, and that similar audience then needs at least 300 users before it can be used.

Can you import remarketing lists from Google Ads?

This is where expectations need managing. Microsoft’s Google Import tool is genuinely useful, but it doesn’t magically clone your Google audiences. What it does import cleanly is your product feed: you can pull your complete Google Merchant Center catalogue into Microsoft Merchant Center and keep it in sync with scheduled daily, weekly, or monthly imports, so you’re not maintaining two feeds by hand. That alone removes most of the setup friction for dynamic remarketing.

Your Google Ads audience lists themselves – remarketing lists, customer match uploads, in-market segments – don’t transfer. The two platforms keep separate audience infrastructure, so you rebuild the lists on the Microsoft side using your UET tag (which is exactly the process above). Treat Google Import as a way to skip the feed rebuild and campaign scaffolding, not as an audience shortcut.

Who dynamic remarketing in Microsoft Ads suits

This isn’t for everyone. It earns its place when:

• You’re an ecommerce brand with a product feed and enough site traffic to fill a 1,000-user list in a reasonable window.
• You already run Google Shopping – your feed and UET setup port across quickly, so the incremental effort is low.
• Your audience skews older, professional, or desktop-heavy, which tends to over-index on the Microsoft/Bing network – often the case for B2B and considered purchases.

If you’re a low-traffic site that will struggle to reach the minimum list size, or you have no product feed, standard remarketing or in-market audiences may be a better starting point than dynamic.

FAQ

Does Microsoft Ads support dynamic remarketing?
Yes. Microsoft Advertising supports dynamic remarketing lists (formerly called product audiences), which show ads for the specific products people viewed, considered, added to cart, or bought. They work best with Shopping and feed-based Audience campaigns tied to a Microsoft Merchant Center store.

How do I set up remarketing in Bing Ads?
Create a single UET tag and add it to every page of your site, then build remarketing lists from user actions in the Shared Library. For dynamic remarketing you also add the ecomm_prodid and ecomm_pagetype parameters to the UET tag and connect a Microsoft Merchant Center product feed. Attach the list to a campaign or ad group and set it to “target and bid” if you only want ads shown to that audience.

Can I import remarketing lists from Google Ads?
Not the lists themselves. You can import your Google Merchant Center product feed into Microsoft Merchant Center via Google Import, and sync it on a schedule, but audience lists (remarketing, customer match, in-market) have to be rebuilt on the Microsoft side using your UET tag.

What is the minimum audience size for Microsoft remarketing?
A remarketing list needs a minimum of 1,000 users before Microsoft will serve remarketed ads to it in paid search. For similar audiences, the source list needs active associations with at least 1,000 users, and the resulting similar audience needs at least 300 users before it can be used.