Authorize a Microsoft Advertising account

Microsoft Advertising allows customers the option to sign in with a work account. Search Ads 360 supports signing in to a Microsoft Advertising account with either a personal Microsoft account or a work account.

 

If you switch from a personal account to a work account, you must reauthorize Search Ads 360 to access your Microsoft Advertising account to avoid functionality issues.

 

When you create or edit a Microsoft Advertising engine account in Search Ads 360, you’ll need to authorize Search Ads 360 to access your Microsoft Advertising account. 

You may be required to re-authorize Search Ads 360 if changes are made to the Microsoft Account that was used to authorize Search Ads 360. For example:

• Someone changed the password for the Microsoft Account.
• Someone made other changes to Microsoft Account's security settings
• Someone added or removed Microsoft Advertising accounts, or made other structural changes.

Note that this Microsoft Account may not be your Microsoft Account: it's the account that was used to authorize Search Ads 360 to manage your Microsoft Advertising account. Some types of changes to this account can cause Search Ads 360 to lose its authorization. If this happens, Search Ads 360 will prompt you to re-authorize.

Authorize Search Ads 360 to access your Microsoft Advertising account

1. Link the Microsoft Advertising account to a Microsoft Account:

   1. Go to the Microsoft Advertising authorization site:
      https://ads.microsoft.com/customer/WlidMigrateUsers.aspx.

   2. Follow the instructions on the site.
      If you don’t already have a Microsoft Account that you want to link to Microsoft Advertising, the site offers an option to create one.

   3. When you finish linking the account, the authorization site takes you to the Microsoft Advertising account for the Microsoft Advertising user you specified in the previous step. You can close this page now.

2. In Search Ads 360, start creating an engine account or editing an engine account.
   The Engine details section displays a warning that indicates you need to link your account.

3. Click the Authorize link.

4. Sign in to the Microsoft Account that you linked to your Microsoft Advertising account. Then grant Search Ads 360 permission to access and update information in your Microsoft Advertising account.

When you finish, the warning in the Engine details section no longer appears. If you click the Authorize link again, Search Ads 360 will request authorization again from your Microsoft Account.

Note: When you authorize an account, Search Ads 360 will authorize all other accounts within the advertiser that use the same set of credentials.

Verify the authorization status of your Microsoft Advertising engine account

To verify that Search Ads 360 is authorized to access your Microsoft Advertising engine account:

1. Visit https://account.live.com/consent/Manage and make sure your Microsoft account has given access to Search Ads 360.
2. In Search Ads 360, navigate to an advertiser and check the Authorization status column in the reporting table. The authorization status column displays one of the following:
   • OK indicates that the engine account is successfully associated with Search Ads 360
   • OAuth authorization needed indicates that Search Ads 360 must be authorized to access your Microsoft Advertising account

   The Authorization status updated column indicates the last time the authorization status was updated. The status is updated several times each day.

 

Use a different Microsoft Account to authorize Search Ads 360

If you've added multiple users to your Microsoft Advertising account, any user in the Super Admin or Advertiser Campaign Manager role can authorize Search Ads 360. A user in the Advertiser Campaign Manager role will need write access to the Microsoft Advertising account. Otherwise, Search Ads 360 won't be able to traffic changes to Microsoft Advertising.

For example:

1. You link the Microsoft Advertising account to your Microsoft Account.

2. You sign in to the Microsoft Advertising account and add a user in the Advertiser Campaign Manager role.

3. The user in the Advertiser Campaign Manager role can now authorize Search Ads 360 to access the Microsoft Advertising account:

   1. Sign in to Search Ads 360 and start creating a Microsoft Advertising engine account or editing an engine account.

   2. Click the Authorize link.

   3. Sign in to his/her Microsoft Account and grant Search Ads 360 permission to access and update information in your Microsoft Advertising account.

If later you place this user in a role other than Super Admin or Advertiser Campaign Manager without write access, Search Ads 360 won't have permission to make changes in your Microsoft Advertising account. You'll need to reauthorize Search Ads 360 using a Microsoft Account-user in the Super Admin or Advertiser Campaign Manager role.

Do I need to authorize all of my existing accounts now?

If you’re changing the settings of an existing Microsoft Advertising engine account, you’ll need to authorize the account before you can save your changes.

If you aren’t making other changes to an engine account, you do not need to update its authorization yet.

Create a read-only user for Search Ads 360 Support

If you ask the Search Ads 360 Support team for help troubleshooting problems with Microsoft Advertising, the support team may request read-only access to your Microsoft Advertising account. They'll use this access to sign in to Microsoft Advertising and view your settings or other issues that may be causing problems. Note that you have complete control over which accounts to share, and you can make changes as needed.

If the Search Ads 360 Support team asks for this access, they'll give you an email address that you add to your Microsoft Advertising account. Once you have the email address, follow these steps:

1. Visit ads.microsoft.com and sign in to your Microsoft Advertising account.

2. Click the Accounts & Billing tab.

3. Click the Users tab.

4. Click Invite user, then enter the following:

   • First name: SA360

   • Last name: Support

   • Email: Search Ads 360 Support will provide this.
     This is usually formatted as: DS-[your agency ID]-[your advertiser ID]@outlook.com.

   • Account role: Viewer (read only access)

5. Specify whether Search Ads 360 Support can view all of your accounts, or select specific accounts.
   We recommend that you grant access to all accounts in case you need help with other accounts in the future.

6. Click Send.

7. Let Search Ads 360 Support know once you've completed these steps.