Almost every UK shop that gets serious about product feeds sets up Google, sees it working, and stops there. Which leaves a channel sitting untouched that takes the exact same feed, has noticeably less competition bidding against you, and can be switched on in an afternoon.
Microsoft Shopping is not going to replace Google. Nothing is. But "smaller channel, same feed, less competition" is one of the better trades available to a small shop, and the setup cost is genuinely low because you are not building anything new.
Full disclosure: we build Orbit, a UK ecommerce platform with a free Microsoft feed plugin. The setup below works on any platform that can produce a product feed.
Why it is worth an hour
Your feed already works there. Microsoft Merchant Center accepts Google's feed format directly. There is no second data standard to learn, no separate field names, no rebuild. If you have a working Google Shopping feed, you have a working Microsoft one.
There is an import tool. Microsoft will pull your catalogue straight out of Google Merchant Center. You sign in with your Google account, pick the catalogue, choose your target market and language, and it builds from what you already have.
Less competition on the auction. Fewer advertisers means less pressure on cost per click. This is the entire commercial case, and it is a real one for a small shop that finds Google's auction expensive.
A different audience. Microsoft's search share skews older and, on most reported measures, wealthier, partly because Edge and Bing are the default on a great many work computers. Whether that audience suits you depends entirely on what you sell. For homeware, gifts, tools and business-adjacent products it often does. For products aimed at people in their early twenties it usually does not.
What it is not
Being straight, because the case does not need inflating. Microsoft's search share in the UK is a fraction of Google's, and your volume will reflect that. This is a supplementary channel, not a second front door.
Treat it as an hour of setup for a permanent trickle of extra orders at a lower cost per click, and it is clearly worth doing. Expect it to transform your business and you will be disappointed.
Setting it up
- Create a Microsoft Advertising account if you do not have one. It is free.
- Open Microsoft Merchant Center and create a store, setting your target market to the United Kingdom and your currency to GBP.
- Import from Google, or point at your own feed. The Google import tool is the fastest route. If you would rather keep the channels independent, submit your feed URL directly and let Microsoft fetch it on a schedule, exactly as Google does.
- Set your shipping settings to match your storefront. Do not skip this. Microsoft flags shipping mismatches more aggressively than Google does, so delivery costs that disagree with your checkout will cost you approvals.
- Verify your website and wait for the catalogue to process.
- Fix whatever gets flagged. The errors are broadly the same family as Google's, and our Merchant Center troubleshooting guide applies almost line for line.
- Create a shopping campaign with a small daily budget, and leave it alone for a fortnight before judging it.
The mistake to avoid
Do not import your Google campaigns wholesale and assume the settings transfer. They import cleanly, which is exactly the trap: bids calibrated for Google's auction are usually wrong for a cheaper one. You will often be overpaying from day one for clicks that were available for less.
Start lower than feels right and let the data tell you where to sit.
Keeping both feeds honest
One catalogue, two channels, and the ordinary failure mode is that they drift. You change a price, one feed updates and the other does not, and you spend a fortnight wondering why Microsoft keeps disapproving products.
The fix is the same as it is everywhere: generate feeds from live product data rather than uploading files, and let each channel fetch on a schedule. On Orbit the Microsoft feed plugin is free on every plan, alongside Google, Pinterest, Snapchat and Meta, all reading the same catalogue, so there is one place where product data is true and every channel follows it.
On most platforms this is where the cost lands: a feed app per channel, or one feed tool with a per-channel price. That is the actual reason small shops end up on Google only. Not strategy, just a second subscription for a smaller channel not feeling worth it.
Questions people ask about Microsoft Shopping
Can I use my Google Shopping feed for Microsoft?
Yes. Microsoft Merchant Center accepts Google's feed format directly, so the same file works on both without changes. Microsoft also provides an import tool that pulls your catalogue straight from Google Merchant Center: you sign in with your Google account, choose the catalogue, and set the target market and language. It is the fastest route from nothing to a live Microsoft catalogue.
Is Microsoft Shopping worth it for a small UK shop?
For about an hour of setup, usually yes, as a supplementary channel. The audience is much smaller than Google's, so expect a trickle rather than a flood, but there are fewer advertisers competing, which generally means a lower cost per click. It suits homeware, gifts, tools and business-adjacent products particularly well, because the Microsoft audience skews older and often reaches people on work computers.
Should I copy my Google Ads settings into Microsoft?
Import the campaign structure if you like, but not the bids. Microsoft's auction is generally cheaper than Google's, so bids calibrated for Google will often overpay from the first day for clicks that were available for less. Start lower than feels comfortable, give it a fortnight, and adjust on what the data says.
Why do my products get disapproved on Microsoft but not Google?
The most common cause is shipping. Microsoft flags mismatches between your feed or Merchant Center delivery settings and what your storefront actually charges more aggressively than Google does. Set your Microsoft shipping settings to match your real checkout costs exactly. Beyond that, the error types are broadly the same family as Google's and the same fixes apply.
The short version
Microsoft takes the feed you have already built, will import your catalogue from Google for you, and puts you in a cheaper auction in front of a different audience. Get the shipping settings right because that is what trips people up, start with lower bids than Google taught you, and treat it as a steady supplement rather than a second Google. An hour of work for a permanent extra channel is a good trade.