Latest / Sidekick's What Just Shipped / Microsoft Ads in HubSpot: search spend tied to contacts | Shipped Aug 2026
Transcript
- Dana (AI host): If your Microsoft Ads results live in a spreadsheet while your deals live in HubSpot, nobody can say which clicks turned into revenue. Rob (AI host): HubSpot's ads tool now connects to Microsoft Advertising, in a beta any Super Admin can opt into. Dana (AI host): Today: how to connect it, what gets tracked, how to send results back to Microsoft, why it matters, and a Monday checklist. Narrator (AI voice): This is Sidekick's What Just Shipped, presented by Sidekick Strategies. Narrator (AI voice): Your hosts, Rob and Dana, are AI. Narrator (AI voice): The voices are synthetic, the research is real, and humans check every claim before it reaches you. Dana (AI host): Quick note before we start: Rob and I are AI hosts. Dana (AI host): We don't run ad budgets, and we haven't connected an account ourselves. Rob (AI host): I'm Rob, and today I'm playing a paid search marketer who reports Microsoft Ads results from a spreadsheet every Friday. Dana (AI host): Here's the change. Dana (AI host): You can connect a Microsoft Advertising account to HubSpot's ads tool, and HubSpot then displays and reports on every existing campaign in that account. Rob (AI host): Which plans get it? Dana (AI host): HubSpot's help pages list all products and plans. Dana (AI host): A Super Admin can opt your account into the Microsoft Advertising Integration beta. Rob (AI host): And who's allowed to connect it? Dana (AI host): Two permissions. In HubSpot, Publish access to the ads tool. Dana (AI host): In Microsoft Advertising, Super Admin access on that individual ad account. Rob (AI host): Okay. Walk me through it. Dana (AI host): In HubSpot, open settings, then Marketing, then Ads. Dana (AI host): On the Ad accounts tab, click Connect account and choose Microsoft Advertising. Dana (AI host): Sign in, click Allow, then tick the accounts you want and click Connect. Rob (AI host): Anything that trips people up? Dana (AI host): A few things, straight from HubSpot's page. Dana (AI host): You have to sign in with Microsoft credentials, because Microsoft Advertising doesn't support sign in with Google. Dana (AI host): Turn off ad blockers while you connect. Dana (AI host): And manager-level customer accounts can't be connected, so connect each ad account on its own. Rob (AI host): What if the company's Microsoft login is locked down by IT? Dana (AI host): Then a Microsoft Entra administrator may need to approve HubSpot's access first. Dana (AI host): HubSpot's page includes the steps for that admin. Rob (AI host): And once it's connected, can a teammate manage it too? Dana (AI host): Yes. You can connect additional users so they can manage and create campaigns for that account. Dana (AI host): With Marketing Hub Enterprise, you can also limit who has access to it. Rob (AI host): Fine. Once it's connected, what do I actually get? Dana (AI host): You can turn on auto-tracking. Dana (AI host): HubSpot adds tracking parameters through an account-level final URL suffix, and turns on Microsoft's click ID tagging. Dana (AI host): That's what links an ad click to a contact. Rob (AI host): Is there anything I can break? Dana (AI host): Yes. Don't override that account-level suffix. Dana (AI host): And if you use a link shortener or a third-party tracking template, make sure it keeps the query parameters on the way to your landing page. Rob (AI host): And going the other way, back to Microsoft? Dana (AI host): You can create a conversion event that sends lifecycle stage changes to Microsoft Advertising, like a contact becoming a customer. Dana (AI host): Microsoft can use that to measure conversions and optimize delivery. Rob (AI host): Why does this matter to someone like me? Dana (AI host): Why it matters: our research makes the point that platform return on ad spend is not the same as deal revenue. Dana (AI host): With tracking on, you can see which contacts clicked, and which deals came from them, in the same place as your other ad networks. Dana (AI host): So if your Microsoft campaigns look cheap on clicks but rarely turn into customers, you'll see that in one report, instead of guessing between two different dashboards. Rob (AI host): So who should move on this first? Dana (AI host): Our research points to marketing ops leaders already running Microsoft Ads but reporting on them outside HubSpot, and RevOps teams who have to prove ad return in closed revenue, not platform conversions. Dana (AI host): If you don't run Microsoft Ads today, nothing here needs your attention yet. George B. Thomas (AI voice clone): Hey, it's George B. Thomas from Sidekick Strategies. George B. Thomas (AI voice clone): Full honesty, this is my AI voice clone, made with my permission. George B. Thomas (AI voice clone): Connecting an ad account is the easy part. George B. Thomas (AI voice clone): Reports that show results, not just activity, take setup. George B. Thomas (AI voice clone): Our Marketing Hub training starts with an audit of how your team uses Marketing Hub, then trains inside your real portal, and we configure reporting dashboards so your team knows what to measure. George B. Thomas (AI voice clone): Your team also gets direct Slack access between sessions. George B. Thomas (AI voice clone): Look for Marketing Hub training under services at Sidekick Strategies dot com. Rob (AI host): Okay, what's still unconfirmed here? Dana (AI host): Two things from our write-up. Dana (AI host): It describes a workflow enrollment trigger based on Microsoft Ads interactions, and reporting on video and connected TV ads. Dana (AI host): HubSpot's Microsoft pages we checked don't mention either one, so treat them as unconfirmed. Dana (AI host): One more caution, and this one is from HubSpot. Dana (AI host): Conversion totals in Microsoft Advertising may not match HubSpot, because each platform counts conversions its own way. Dana (AI host): Only stage changes after you create the event are counted. Dana (AI host): And watch account health. Dana (AI host): If a Microsoft ad account is cancelled, it's disconnected from HubSpot and shows an error. Dana (AI host): Accounts with billing issues, policy violations, or a long stretch of inactivity get marked Inactive. Rob (AI host): So if a campaign vanishes from my report, I check the account status first. Dana (AI host): Also check which campaign types you run. Dana (AI host): Search, Shopping, Hotel and App campaigns get both tracking and reporting. Dana (AI host): Performance Max reports at the campaign and asset group level only. Dana (AI host): Audience campaigns get reporting, but not tracking. Rob (AI host): Here's my Monday, as the marketer I'm playing. Rob (AI host): Step one: get a Super Admin to opt into the beta, and confirm I have Publish access to the ads tool. Dana (AI host): Step two: check that your Microsoft login is a Microsoft account, not a Google sign in, and that it has Super Admin on the ad account. Rob (AI host): Step three: connect each ad account, then turn on auto-tracking. Dana (AI host): Step four: ask whoever owns your link shorteners and tracking templates whether they keep query parameters. Rob (AI host): Step five: build one conversion event for the customer stage, with a consent property, so only contacts who agreed get shared. Dana (AI host): And give it a few weeks before you compare numbers, since only new stage changes count. Dana (AI host): In short: connect each account, turn on tracking, and judge Microsoft Ads by deals. Rob (AI host): Links to every source are in the show notes, and more of our research lives at Sidekick Strategies dot com. Dana (AI host): Glad you spent these minutes with us. Rob (AI host): Clicks are nice. Closed deals are better. Narrator (AI voice): Sidekick's What Just Shipped is presented by Sidekick Strategies, with AI hosts Rob and Dana and AI-generated music. Narrator (AI voice): We're independent, and not affiliated with HubSpot. Find our research at Sidekick Strategies dot com.