Microsoft Ads: How to Block the Audience Network (2026 Strategy)

You launch a "Search" campaign.

You expect search traffic.

You expect people typing into Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, or other search partners.

You expect intent.

Then you check the report.

A chunk of your budget has gone to "Audience Ads."

The clicks are cheaper.

The traffic looks busier.

But the leads are weaker.

The conversion rate is poor.

The sessions do not behave like search traffic.

This is one of the most common problems in Microsoft Ads.

It is also one of the most frustrating.

Because to a normal business owner, a search campaign should mean search.

It should mean someone has typed a query.

It should mean the person is actively looking.

That is the promise of search advertising.

But Microsoft Ads can also place ads across its Audience Network. These ads can appear in more display-led environments, such as Microsoft properties and partner placements.

That is not always bad.

Audience Ads can work in the right account.

They can support remarketing. They can help ecommerce. They can work for upper funnel demand. They can support brands with strong creative and long buying journeys.

But they should not quietly spend money inside a campaign that was built for search intent.

That is the issue.

Not that Audience Ads exist.

The issue is control.

If you are running a lead generation account, a local service campaign, a dealership campaign, a professional service campaign, or a B2B campaign, you usually need cleaner intent.

You need to know where the money is going.

You need to know which placements are helping.

You need to know which placements are wasting spend.

Microsoft makes this harder than it should be.

There is no simple, obvious checkbox that says:

"Search only. No Audience Network."

Instead, you need to use settings, exclusions, reports and regular checks.

In this "Mega-Authority" guide, we cover:

The "Trap": Automated Extensions.

The goal is simple.

Protect your budget.

Keep search campaigns focused on search intent.

Stop low quality placements from stealing money that should be used for higher intent clicks.

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Part 1: The Website Exclusion List (The Best Way)

This is usually the strongest place to start in 2026.

A website exclusion list gives you more direct control over where your ads are allowed to appear.

It is not glamorous.

It is not clever.

But it is practical.

When you are dealing with wasted Audience Network traffic, practical matters.

The problem with relying only on campaign settings is that platform settings can change, move, or behave differently across campaign types.

Some settings are not visible in all accounts.

Some campaign types offer less control.

Some imports from Google Ads can carry over settings you did not expect.

Some automated recommendations can push the account back toward broader delivery.

A shared exclusion list gives you a cleaner safeguard.

You can apply it across the relevant campaigns and keep it as part of your account hygiene.

This is especially important for accounts where every pound matters.

If a small business spends £1,000 per month, and 20% leaks into weak placements, that is £200.

That £200 could have gone to high intent search.

It could have gone to people searching for a local dealership.

It could have gone to people looking for a solicitor.

It could have gone to people searching for emergency repairs.

It could have gone to people comparing service providers.

In paid media, waste is not just a reporting problem.

Waste is lost opportunity.

This is the only method I would treat as a core account protection step in 2026.

1. Go to Tools -> Exclusion Lists.
2. Create a list called "Block Audience Network."
3. Add exactly these domains:

4. But wait, there's more. You should also add the entire "Partner Traffic" wildcard (if available in your region) or use a curated list of "20,000 bad placements."

The first two exclusions are designed to remove common Microsoft-owned Audience placements.

The in-app token is useful because in-app placements can behave very differently from search traffic.

A search visitor has intent.

An in-app visitor may be browsing, tapping, scrolling, or accidentally clicking.

That does not mean every in-app click is bad.

But for most search-led lead generation campaigns, it is not the traffic you were trying to buy.

A curated placement exclusion list can also help.

This is where experience matters.

Some placements may look fine on the surface but produce weak sessions. Some may produce high click volume with low engagement. Some may appear in reports again and again without meaningful conversions.

You should not block everything blindly.

But you should not let poor placements run forever because they are hidden inside the account.

The right approach is simple:

1. Pull placement data.
2. Look for spend without conversions.
3. Look for extreme bounce or short sessions.
4. Look for suspicious traffic patterns.
5. Look for placements that do not match the campaign intent.
6. Exclude what is clearly not working.
7. Review again.

Do not make this a one time job.

Make it part of weekly or monthly optimisation.

A good exclusion list is like a clean workshop.

It does not make the business successful by itself.

But without it, everything becomes harder.

Pro Tip: Add bing.com? NO! That blocks Search traffic.

Be very careful here.

It can be tempting to block anything that appears as a poor placement.

But bing.com is not the same as msn.com.

Bing is core search inventory.

If you exclude the wrong domain, you may damage the exact traffic you wanted to protect.

The aim is not to block Microsoft.

The aim is to block low intent Audience delivery inside search campaigns.

That distinction matters.

If you are not sure whether a placement is search inventory or display-led inventory, do not guess.

Check the report.

Check the network.

Check the campaign type.

Check whether conversions are coming from that source.

The goal is not aggressive blocking for the sake of it.

The goal is controlled buying.

You want to buy search traffic when you are paying for search.

You want to buy audience traffic only when you have chosen to run audience activity.

That is how mature accounts are managed.

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Part 2: The Bid Adjustment Hack

The bid adjustment method has been used for years.

It is still worth checking.

It is not always enough on its own.

But it is still a sensible layer of protection when available.

Go to Campaign Settings -> Advanced Settings -> Other settings -> Audience Ads.

• Set "Decrease by 100%".
• Warning: Microsoft sometimes ignores this for "High Intent" users. But do it anyway.
• Warning: Some new campaign types (PMax) disable this setting.

This setting tells Microsoft that you do not want to bid into Audience Ads from that campaign.

In theory, a minus 100% adjustment should remove delivery.

In practice, many advertisers have seen cases where Audience traffic still appears, or where the setting is no longer available in the same way across all campaign types.

That is why this should not be your only control.

Use it.

But verify it.

Paid media is not managed by trust.

It is managed by evidence.

After applying the setting, check the reports.

Look at the network split.

Look at placements.

Look at spend.

Look at CPA.

Look at conversion rate.

If Audience spend drops to zero, good.

If it reduces but does not disappear, you need exclusions as well.

If the option is not available, you need to use the controls you still have.

This is especially important if you import campaigns from Google Ads.

Imports are useful.

They save time.

But they can also create messy settings.

A Google Search campaign imported into Microsoft Ads is not always a perfect copy of what you intended.

Microsoft has its own network rules, recommendations, defaults and campaign behaviour.

So after every import, check:

1. Network settings.
2. Audience settings.
3. Automated assets.
4. Extensions.
5. Location targeting.
6. Ad schedules.
7. Bidding strategies.
8. Conversion goals.
9. Tracking templates.
10. Exclusion lists.

Do not assume the import is clean.

Trust the import for structure.

Audit the import for spend control.

That is the professional approach.

The bid adjustment hack is useful because it is fast.

You can apply it quickly.

You can apply it across campaigns.

You can combine it with exclusions.

But you still need to check the account after.

The platform does not care about your budget in the same way you do.

It wants delivery.

You want profitable delivery.

Those are not always the same thing.

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Part 3: IP Blocking

IP blocking is a more advanced control.

It should not be your first move.

It should not be used casually.

But it can help when you see clear signs of poor quality or suspicious traffic.

Bot traffic on the Audience Network is high.

If you see huge spikes in traffic with 100% bounce rate:

1. Check your Server Logs for the IP range.
2. Go to Settings -> IP Exclusions.
3. Block the range.

• Common culprit: Data Centers in Virginia/Ireland (AWS bots).

This is where you need to be careful.

Not every bad session is a bot.

Not every data centre visit is fraud.

Not every short visit is worthless.

People click by mistake.

Pages load slowly.

Tracking breaks.

Consent banners affect analytics.

Some users bounce because the landing page does not match the ad.

Some users bounce because the offer is not clear.

So before blocking IPs, look for patterns.

You are looking for behaviour that is clearly abnormal.

For example:

1. A large spike from one IP range.
2. Many clicks with almost no page engagement.
3. Repeated visits from data centre networks.
4. Traffic at strange hours with no commercial reason.
5. Very high click volume from a narrow source.
6. Zero conversions from a source that spends heavily.
7. Server logs that do not match normal user behaviour.
8. Repeated hits to the same page with no journey.
9. Suspicious user agents.
10. Repeated traffic from locations outside your target market.

For small accounts, IP blocking is often less important than placement exclusions.

For larger accounts, it can become useful.

Especially where a campaign is spending enough that low quality traffic becomes expensive.

But do not spend five hours chasing a £3 problem.

That is another mistake.

Optimisation needs proportion.

If you spend £500 per month, focus on the big leaks first.

If you spend £50,000 per month, deeper traffic analysis becomes more valuable.

The right level of control depends on the size of the account.

For most advertisers, the priority order should be:

1. Exclude poor placements.
2. Apply Audience Ads bid reductions where available.
3. Review network performance.
4. Fix tracking.
5. Improve landing pages.
6. Then investigate IP issues if the data justifies it.

IP blocking is not a magic fix.

It is a tool.

Use it when the evidence is strong.

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Part 4: Syndicated Search Partners

This is different from Audience Network.

That point matters.

Many advertisers confuse the two.

Audience Network traffic is more display-led.

Syndicated Search traffic comes from search partner sites.

"Syndicated Search" means Yahoo, AOL, and DuckDuckGo.

• Strategy: Do not turn this off globally. DuckDuckGo is high quality.
• Optimization: Run a "Publisher Report." Sort by CPA. Exclude only the specific domains that are failing (e.g., yahoo.com often converts poorly for B2B).

Syndicated Search can be valuable.

It can also be mixed.

Some partners perform well.

Some do not.

Some work in ecommerce.

Some work in local services.

Some work for consumer campaigns.

Some struggle in B2B.

That is why a blanket rule is usually lazy.

You need to separate the network types before making decisions.

Search partner traffic still has query intent.

That means the person has searched for something.

The quality may vary by partner, but the behaviour is closer to search than display.

Audience Network traffic does not carry the same level of search intent.

This difference matters for lead quality.

A lead from a search query often knows what they want.

A lead from a display-style placement may need more education.

Neither is automatically good or bad.

But they should be measured differently.

If you judge Audience traffic by search standards, it may look weak.

If you allow Audience traffic to spend inside search campaigns, your search performance may look worse than it really is.

This is why reporting needs to be clean.

Run a publisher report.

Look at performance by source.

Sort by:

1. Spend.
2. Clicks.
3. Conversions.
4. CPA.
5. Conversion rate.
6. Revenue where available.
7. Lead quality where available.
8. Bounce or engagement where available.

Then make decisions.

Do not exclude a partner because you do not like the name.

Exclude it because the data shows it is not working.

Also be careful with short date ranges.

A partner can look poor after two clicks.

That does not mean it is poor.

Use enough data.

For small accounts, you may need to review over 30 to 90 days.

For larger accounts, weekly reviews may be enough.

The aim is not to cut everything.

The aim is to keep what works and remove what wastes money.

That is how good optimisation should feel.

Calm.

Evidence led.

Commercial.

Not emotional.

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Part 5: Summary & Checklist

Microsoft Ads can be valuable.

It often has lower competition than Google Ads.

It can produce strong results for B2B, professional services, automotive, finance, software, local services and higher income audiences.

But it needs control.

You cannot simply launch a campaign and assume every pound is going to clean search traffic.

You need to check where the money is actually going.

That is the whole point of this guide.

A search campaign should not quietly become a display campaign.

A budget built for high intent clicks should not be drained by low intent placements.

A business owner should not pay for traffic they did not knowingly choose.

The fix is not complicated.

But it does require discipline.

You need to use exclusions.

You need to check bid settings.

You need to review publisher performance.

You need to separate Audience Network from Syndicated Search.

You need to check the account after imports, recommendations and campaign changes.

Most wasted spend does not happen in one dramatic moment.

It happens quietly.

A little spend here.

A few poor placements there.

A setting that was missed.

A campaign type with less control.

An import that changed behaviour.

A report that was not checked.

Then one month later, the account looks weaker.

The CPA is higher.

The lead quality is lower.

The budget did not go as far as it should have.

That is why budget protection matters.

It is not just technical housekeeping.

It is commercial responsibility.

Your Action Plan:

I would also add this deeper checklist to your monthly Microsoft Ads review:

1. Check spend by network.
2. Check spend by publisher.
3. Check spend by placement.
4. Check conversion rate by source.
5. Check CPA by source.
6. Check lead quality by source.
7. Check whether Audience Ads are active in search campaigns.
8. Check whether the -100% Audience Ads adjustment is still applied where available.
9. Check whether website exclusion lists are attached to the right campaigns.
10. Check whether new campaigns were created without exclusions.
11. Check whether Google Ads imports changed settings.
12. Check whether automated recommendations added assets or changed delivery.
13. Check whether Performance Max or newer campaign types are using broader inventory.
14. Check whether syndicated search partners are helping or hurting.
15. Check whether poor publishers should be excluded.
16. Check whether suspicious IP patterns justify blocking.
17. Check whether tracking is clean before judging performance.
18. Check whether low quality leads are coming from specific sources.
19. Check whether Microsoft Ads is being judged fairly against Google Ads.
20. Check whether the account is buying intent, or just buying clicks.

Guard your budget.

Do not let cheap clicks make the account look busy.

Busy is not the same as profitable.

Clicks are not the same as leads.

Leads are not the same as customers.

A good Microsoft Ads account is not the one with the most traffic.

It is the one where spend is controlled, intent is clear, and the business can see where the money is going.

That is the standard.