This Week in PPC & Search, 2026-09-28

Week of 2026-09-28

Microsoft Advertising's September roundup bundles a new HubSpot integration, bigger LinkedIn company lists, generally available optimisation experiments, and a softened SOAP to REST API deadline, all positioned as pre-holiday prep.

Worth knowing

Microsoft Advertising adds native HubSpot integration for pipeline tracking and lead follow-up

Microsoft Advertising blog · 2026-09-30

Microsoft Advertising is now live inside HubSpot. Advertisers can sync CRM contacts to target Microsoft audiences including verified LinkedIn professionals, trigger automated next-best-actions in HubSpot when a Microsoft Advertising campaign captures a lead, and view ad-to-pipeline and ad-to-revenue reporting by connecting ad clicks to HubSpot deals. Separately, optimisation experiments for Search, Shopping, Audience and Performance Max campaigns moved from beta to generally available, letting advertisers A/B test bidding, targeting and creative changes with a unified comparison view before rolling out. LinkedIn company lists for account-based targeting expanded from 1,000 to 10,000 company names per list, usable with LinkedIn profile targeting in Search and Audience campaigns. Microsoft also extended its SOAP to REST API migration deadline, keeping both APIs live for new features until SOAP is fully deprecated on 31 January 2027.

This is a Tier 1 platform announcement, so the features are confirmed as shipped rather than roadmap talk, though Microsoft's framing of business impact is vendor marketing and should be treated with the usual scepticism. The HubSpot link matters most for lead gen advertisers because it moves Microsoft Advertising closer to proper revenue attribution, which aligns with the doctrine that revenue is the hardest metric to game, provided the CRM data feeding it is clean. The LinkedIn company list expansion is explicitly flagged as excluding EEA, UK and Switzerland consumer data, so UK B2B advertisers should not expect the full benefit despite the headline number. Optimisation experiments going GA is a genuinely useful testing tool for both lead gen and ecommerce accounts, letting changes be validated before being applied at scale. The REST API deadline extension is a technical housekeeping item mainly relevant to anyone running custom integrations.

Lead genConnect HubSpot once contracts and conversion tracking are properly configured, since this finally gives a path to judge Microsoft Advertising spend against real pipeline and revenue rather than click or lead volume alone. Do not rely on the bigger LinkedIn company lists for UK account-based targeting given the stated UK exclusion.

EcommerceUse the newly GA optimisation experiments to test bidding or creative changes ahead of peak season with a controlled before and after view, rather than making blind changes during the holiday run-up.

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