Microsoft Ads import from Google: keep the structure, reset the bids?

Say you have a Google Ads Search account doing well and you want to add Microsoft Ads. The import tool copies campaigns, keywords and ads in a few minutes, and most people hit import and leave it there. I'm not convinced that's the right move. Importing keeps your structure, which saves real time, but the bids and budgets were set against Google traffic. Bing usually delivers far less volume and skews older and more desktop, so a tCPA target carried over from Google can starve a campaign of impressions for weeks. I'd import the structure and the negatives, then reset bids and budgets from Microsoft's own data and give it two weeks before judging. Has anyone seen an imported account hold up without changes?

Agreed on tCPA, and the other thing I'd check is the conversion goal. If the Google import brings over a conversion action that counts clicks or form fills from a different tag, Microsoft will optimize toward whatever it sees. Make sure the UET tag is firing the same event before you touch any bids.

It comes down to how many conversions that campaign gets on Bing each month. Bing often delivers a fraction of Google's volume, so something doing 60 conversions on Google might only get 6 or 8 on Microsoft. Smart bidding needs roughly 15 to 30 conversions in 30 days to learn anything useful, so below that I'd swap the tCPA for Maximize Clicks or manual CPC and let data build up. Above that range, keep the imported target but loosen it a bit, since Bing CPCs are often lower and your cost per conversion may not line up with Google's.

Check the threshold per campaign, not per ad group. Bing skews desktop, so a campaign that clears 15 to 30 conversions can still have thin device or ad group splits, and the bidding model learns from the campaign as a whole anyway. For e-commerce I'd look harder at value. If the Google campaign runs tROAS, the target was set on Google's order values and customer mix, and Bing buyers may spend differently. Which bidding strategy is the Google campaign on right now?

Depends on whether Bing buyers spend like Google buyers, and you can check that before you touch the target. Compare average order value by device on both networks. Bing desktop tends to skew toward higher-value buyers, so a blended Google tROAS can look too cautious there and too aggressive on mobile. If the Bing values sit close to Google's, keep the imported target and watch the first two weeks. If they're clearly different, set the target from a month of Bing's own values rather than the Google number.