Microsoft search ads for law firms: Bing, Copilot and partner sites

Microsoft search ads put your firm in front of people searching on Bing, inside Microsoft Copilot and on Microsoft’s partner sites: searches that Google ads never reach. We run them from the same plan as your Google ads, send signed cases back to Microsoft the same way, and give them their own line in your Monday report.

Why a second search engine matters

• Searches Google never sees. Microsoft’s network covers Bing and the sites and apps that run on it. Google ads don’t show on any of those searches.
• Ads in AI answers. Microsoft says eligible ads can appear inside Copilot’s answers (Microsoft), so Microsoft is one of the few places where search ads already sit next to AI answers.
• Bing feeds more than Bing. ChatGPT search draws on third-party search providers as well as its own crawler (OpenAI), and Microsoft’s own surfaces use Bing’s index and Bing Places. A clean Microsoft presence helps beyond the ads themselves.

We keep Microsoft only if it earns its place. For some firms it becomes a steady second source of signed cases; for others it doesn’t pay. The Monday report tells you which, for your firm.

How we set it up

1. Your account, your name. The Microsoft Advertising account is opened in your firm’s name, on your payment method. Microsoft serves ads only from verified advertisers (Microsoft).
2. Start from Google, then separate. Microsoft can import Google campaigns, keywords, ads, bids and budgets (Microsoft). We use that to save time, then tune Microsoft on its own: search terms, bids and match behavior differ, and a scheduled re-import would undo that tuning, so we don’t leave one running.
3. Capture Microsoft’s click ID. Every Microsoft ad click carries its own ID, the MSCLKID. We capture it on your forms and calls and store it in your CRM next to Google’s click ID, so a signed case can be matched to the right click.
4. Send signed cases back. Microsoft accepts offline conversions keyed to its click ID, with a time, a goal and a value (Microsoft). We import qualified leads and signed cases daily, with the same neutral stage names and value bands we send Google, so Microsoft’s bidding learns from the same truth.
5. Screen search terms. The same hourly screening, the same two-reviewer rule, and the same guard: we never block a term that produced a qualified lead or a signed case in the last 180 days.

Where Microsoft differs from Google

How we measure it in signed cases

Microsoft gets its own lines in the Monday report, in English and Spanish: spend, leads, qualified leads, consults, signed cases and cost per signed case, once a line has at least 5 signed cases. Because it is often smaller than Google, it can take longer to read. We say when a line is too small to judge rather than guess. Over a quarter, you can see plainly whether Microsoft signs cases for less, for more, or not at all.

Ethics and policy notes

• Ads on Microsoft are lawyer advertising, just like ads on Google. Your attorney approves every version, and any filing your state requires covers them too. We prepare the packet.
• Required statements, such as your responsible lawyer’s name and office city, appear in Microsoft ads as they do in Google’s.
• No Customer Match or lookalike audiences built from client lists, in any practice, and remarketing only where Microsoft’s policies allow it. Uploads carry a click ID, a neutral stage, a value band and a time, never case details.
• If Microsoft restricts a kind of legal ad on a placement, we follow the restriction rather than look for a way around it.

How it changes by practice

• Personal injury: a useful second line in many metros, judged on the same value bands as Google.
• Estate planning: clients research carefully, often on a computer; we test whether that shows up as cheaper signed matters.
• Employment law: for firms on the employer side, LinkedIn profile targeting can favor searches from HR teams.
• Lemon law: make-and-model searches behave much as on Google, with the same trademark care.

Microsoft and Google search are planned together: start with Google search ads.