How to Set Up Performance Max for Shopping on Microsoft Advertising

Fadiyah Sameh
July 14, 2026
Digital Marketing
About 6 Min Read

Microsoft Advertising retired Smart Shopping campaigns and replaced them with Performance Max. To run automated, feed-based shopping ads on Bing today, you create a Performance Max campaign using a Microsoft Advertising account, a UET tag, a conversion goal, and a product feed uploaded to Microsoft Merchant Center.

This guide covers the full setup process, what changed from Smart Shopping, and how to optimize your feed for better ad ranking.

What happened to Bing Smart Shopping campaigns

Microsoft began phasing out Smart Shopping campaigns in 2024 and finished converting all remaining ones to Performance Max by the end of January 2025. You can no longer create a new Smart Shopping campaign.

If you still have one running, Microsoft has already upgraded it automatically, and your reporting history has carried over unchanged. The setup steps below, conversion goals, UET tags, and product feeds work the same way for Performance Max.

What You Need Before You Start

To run a Performance Max shopping campaign, you need:

Microsoft Advertising account: Your access point for campaign creation and reporting.
Conversion goal: Required before Microsoft Advertising will let you create the campaign.
UET tag: The tracking code installed on your WooCommerce site.
Product feed file: Contains your product data, formatted for Microsoft’s requirements.
Microsoft Merchant Center store: Where your feed connects to your ad account.

How to Set Up a Performance Max Shopping Campaign Using CTX Feed

Step 1: Create a Microsoft Advertising Account

Go to ads.microsoft.com and sign up. If you already have a Hotmail or Outlook account, you’re halfway there. Click Sign Up and fill in the required information.

Step 2: Set Up a Conversion Goal

Microsoft Advertising won’t let you create a Performance Max campaign without a conversion goal. From the campaign creation window, select “Sell products from your catalog.” If no conversion goal exists yet, you’ll see a prompt to create one.

Go to the conversion goals page and click Create. Select the conversion type, which is Website in most WooCommerce setups. Then choose the goal type. Selecting Purchase and Products lets you track which product ads generate revenue, which also feeds Performance Max’s automated bidding.

Enter your conversion goal details, then indicate whether you’ve already installed a UET tag on your site.

Step 3: Install the UET Tag on Your WooCommerce Site

You can find your UET tag under the Tools menu, or Microsoft Advertising will prompt you to create one during conversion goal setup.

Copy the UET tag code from Microsoft Advertising. In WordPress, go to Appearance, then Theme File Editor, and open header.php. Paste the code between the <head> and </head> tags, then update the file.

Back in Microsoft Advertising, copy the event tag code (select “Track event on inline action” if you want to track a specific interaction). Paste it below the tag you added earlier, then update the file again.

Step 4: Create a Product Feed File With CTX Feed

Performance Max, like Smart Shopping before it, pulls product ads from a feed rather than manually created ads. Standard WooCommerce doesn’t generate this file on its own. CTX Feed, a WooCommerce product feed plugin, handles this and lets you update your feed automatically from your WooCommerce backend.

Install CTX Feed from the WordPress repository, go to its dashboard menu, and click Make Feed. Specify your country, name your file, choose a file format, and select the Bing Shopping template. CTX Feed pulls product data from your store and populates the required attributes automatically. Review the fields, adjust anything specific to your catalog, and click Generate Feed.

Step 5: Create a Microsoft Merchant Center Store

In your Microsoft Advertising account, go to Merchant Center and click to create a store. Enter your store name and select a domain validation method. If you’ve already validated through your UET tag, select that option and choose your URL from the dropdown.

Your URL will only appear here once the UET tag is installed and your site has logged at least 50 visitors. Verification takes at least 24 hours after that threshold is met, and you can’t run a Performance Max shopping campaign until it completes.

Enable SSL checkout, set any aggregator blocking preferences, enter your email and language, then click Create Store.

Step 6: Connect Your Product Feed URL

Select your store, go to Feeds, and click Create Feed. Choose “Automatically download file from URL,” then set your update frequency. Selecting weekly and Monday, for example, refreshes your feed every Monday. Hourly and monthly options are also available.

Go back to your WordPress dashboard, open CTX Feed, then Manage Feeds, and copy the URL for your Bing feed. Paste it into the Source URL field in the Merchant Center and click Create Feed. Microsoft will take some time to fetch your data.

Step 7: Create the Performance Max Campaign

Once your UET tag is verified, your conversion goal is set, and your feed is connected, go back to the main campaign window and click Create Campaign. Select “Sell products from your catalog,” then choose Performance Max.

Name your campaign, set your daily budget, and set a target ROAS. Choose your country of sale and the networks where ads should appear, such as Bing, AOL, and Yahoo, and set your ad schedule.

Your campaign will be created, but ads won’t run immediately. Microsoft verifies your details before ads start serving.

How Bing Displays Your Shopping Ads

Microsoft Advertising displays shopping ads across several placements: in a right-side panel next to search results, at the top of the search results page, and in Microsoft’s dedicated shopping comparison engine.

How to Optimize Performance Max Shopping Ads

You can’t manually write ad copy or choose images for feed-based shopping ads. Optimizing your product feed data is the only lever you have, whether you’re managing the feed through Microsoft Merchant Center directly or through CTX Feed.

If your WooCommerce product pages are already SEO-optimized, CTX Feed carries that same optimized data into your feed automatically.

Title: The most important ranking factor for any shopping ad. Include your primary product keyword along with attributes such as type, color, brand, and gender, where relevant.
Image: Clear, high-resolution images perform better. A weak image will hold your ad back even with strong targeting.
Price: Shoppers routinely compare prices across sites before buying, so competitive pricing directly affects click-through and conversion performance.

Performance Max vs Smart Shopping: What’s Different

Automation model: Smart Shopping combined shopping and display remarketing in one campaign. Performance Max extends that automation across Bing, AOL, Yahoo, and additional Microsoft Advertising placements from a single campaign.
Asset input: Performance Max lets you add more creative assets (images, headlines, descriptions) that the system can combine automatically, beyond what Smart Shopping supports.
Reporting: Existing Smart Shopping performance history carried over to the new Performance Max campaign after the automatic upgrade, so historical reporting wasn’t lost in the transition.
Setup requirements: Conversion goals, UET tags, and product feeds work the same way for both, so the underlying setup in this guide didn’t change.

Best WooCommerce Product Feed Plugin for Microsoft Advertising: CTX Feed

CTX Feed generates and maintains your WooCommerce product feed for Performance Max and other shopping channels, without requiring you to build or update the file manually.

It includes a pre-built Bing Shopping template that automatically maps your WooCommerce product data to Microsoft’s required attributes, so you don’t have to research feed specifications from scratch.

Key Features

Ready-made templates: Pre-built templates for Bing, Google, Meta, and other shopping and marketing channels.
Automatic updates: Scheduled feed refreshes keep pricing, availability, and product details current without manual re-uploads.
Attribute mapping: Map WooCommerce fields to each channel’s required attributes, with the ability to adjust or add custom values.
Feed filtering: Exclude products with incomplete data, out-of-stock items, or unprofitable listings from your feed.
Support for all product types: Works with simple, variable, grouped, and bundled WooCommerce products.

Frequently Asked Questions

What happened to Bing Smart Shopping campaigns?

Microsoft Advertising deprecated Smart Shopping campaigns and converted all remaining ones to Performance Max by the end of January 2025. New Smart Shopping campaigns can no longer be created, but the underlying setup, including conversion goals, UET tags, and product feeds, works the same way for Performance Max.

How does Performance Max use my product feed?

Performance Max pulls product data from your Microsoft Merchant Center feed to generate shopping ads automatically, then uses your bidding strategy to distribute them across Bing, AOL, Yahoo, and other Microsoft Advertising placements.

How do I optimize a Performance Max shopping campaign?

Since ads are generated from your feed rather than written manually, optimization means improving your feed data directly: strong product titles with relevant attributes, high-resolution images, and competitive pricing.

Do I need CTX Feed to run shopping ads on Bing?

No, but standard WooCommerce doesn’t generate a feed file on its own. CTX Feed automates feed creation and keeps it synced with your product data, which saves manual work compared to building the feed by hand.

Key Takeaways

Smart Shopping campaigns no longer exist on Microsoft Advertising. All were converted to Performance Max by the end of January 2025.
The setup process, Microsoft Advertising account, conversion goal, UET tag, product feed, and Merchant Center store, carries over directly to Performance Max.
CTX Feed automates WooCommerce product feed creation with a ready-made Bing Shopping template.
Ads are generated entirely from your feed data, so title, image, and price quality directly determine ad performance.
Performance Max extends Smart Shopping’s automation across more Microsoft Advertising placements from a single campaign.

Share