These days, there are more forms of media than ever. From social and online publishers to a litany of options on TV and beyond, consumers can be elusive for agencies and marketers, often proving to be needles in a supposedly connected digital ecosystem.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. Microsoft Media offers agencies and marketers the chance to reach audiences during every part of their day. What’s more, its smarter AI-powered tools and ecosystem can reduce wastage, improve effectiveness and now that its media sales across Australia and New Zealand are back in-house, it’s easier than ever for agencies and marketers to take advantage of this powerful opportunity.
One Billion Opportunities
Finding an audience in today’s digital media landscape is easy. Engaging with them is hard. Engaging with the right audience is harder yet. It’s a problem that brands around Australia and their agencies are grappling with every day as budgets decline due to rising cost-of-living pressures for consumers and businesses. Consumers also expect their experiences to be personalised as a baseline.
Microsoft’s media ecosystem gives it a seldom-matched scale in the industry. It reaches one billion people globally as they search, browse, connect, play and shop across its array of surfaces, including MSN, Edge, Outlook, LinkedIn, Bing, Microsoft Casual Games, Xbox and Activision Blizzard.
In fact, MSN is the number one desktop news and information service around the world, and locally MSN reaches an audience of 13 million unique browsers every month, with 47 per cent of the audience in the 25 – 54 demographic. Outlook is the second-largest email client globally with two million users in Australia per month. Xbox and Microsoft Casual Games have more than 500 million users around the world, and LinkedIn is the largest business social network in the world.
With advertisers continually seeking incremental audiences, they can take heart in Microsoft Advertising’s reach into people you can’t find anywhere else – 7 million Australians in the Microsoft ecosystem aren’t on Pinterest, the same goes for Instagram. And three million are not on YouTube, with a similar number not on Amazon.
Microsoft Media’s audiences spend significant time on digital channels, with 56 per cent spending six to 20 hours online. What’s more, Microsoft Media’s audiences are valuable. They’re high-intent purchasers, with 48 per cent likely to be in the highest income bracket, and 46 per cent are more likely to have made a purchase last week. Plus, they’re 30 per cent more likely to click on an ad.
The AI Growth Engine
Microsoft’s Copilot boasts 140 million daily active users—something that is set to grow as more consumers start to use the tools and embrace AI-driven search. And with Copilot integrated across Microsoft properties, including Bing, Outlook, Edge, and Windows 11 devices, it helps consumers find the content they are most interested in by enhancing search results and answering questions. By creating more personalised experiences that people expect, consumers tend to be more engaged with Microsoft Media. The benefit is better ad performance, with Copilot click-through rates 69 per cent higher on average across all ad formats. Additionally, Copilot conversion rates are 76 per cent higher and the consumer journeys are reduced by a third when compared to traditional search.
In a media world that is becoming harder to navigate, Microsoft Media offers a straightforward but powerful opportunity for brands to reach consumers. But Microsoft’s AI capabilities also give media agencies and marketers the ability to unlock new audiences and drive significant improvements in ROAS, revenue growth and more, making your ad dollars work harder.
Ease & Flexibility
Audiences are increasingly discerning, particularly about how they spend their time and interact with the world around them. With multiple properties, formats, and touchpoints, Microsoft Media delivers interconnected options so people can choose how they want to engage, and cross-product entry points keep them within the Microsoft product line.
For example, Microsoft Edge contributes 60% of MSN traffic by serving as the default tab page. Bing search results may direct users to MSN, while MSN can subsequently guide them to gaming content powered by Microsoft Casual Games. The interconnectivity encourages people to visit one Microsoft property after another, creating the audience growth and increased traffic that gives advertisers more engaged people to reach.
And, as we said earlier, with its Antipodean media sales back in-house, it’s now even easier for brands to go from ideation to creation to execution within the Microsoft Media ecosystem to reach these valuable, hard-to-reach audiences.
Discover how Microsoft Media is uniquely positioned to reach your most valuable customers.
