# Microsoft Advertising API (slim)

> Microsoft's API for Microsoft Advertising (formerly Bing Ads) search, shopping and audience campaigns. It covers campaign management, bulk upload and download, reporting, ad insight, billing and account management over REST and SOAP.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/microsoft-advertising-api.md (~7,500 tokens) · this version ~1,680 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/microsoft-advertising-api.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/microsoft-advertising-api
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · Updated: 2026-10-08

**C · 60.3/100 · rank #360 of 629 · #4 in Advertising & campaign operations · not agent-ready · confidence medium**


Assessment: Version 13 covers campaigns, budgets, audiences, ads and reports over REST with JSON, with a sandbox that needs no payment method and four official SDKs. Call-rate limits are unpublished, no public OpenAPI file or idempotency key was found, and one OAuth scope covers every operation. The SOAP interface retires on 31 January 2027.

## Facts

- Kind: HTTP API · vendor: Microsoft · category: Advertising & campaign operations · legal entity: Microsoft Corporation · provenance 90/100
- Endpoint: `https://campaign.api.bingads.microsoft.com/CampaignManagement/v13` (HTTP)
- Auth: OAuth · pricing: Free · x402: no · licence: Proprietary service. The .NET, Java, Python and PHP SDKs are MIT
- Probe metrics: not measured yet (probes haven't run)
- Services: Campaign Management (189 operations listed), Bulk, Reporting, Ad Insight, Customer Management and Customer Billing, all version 13, each with production and sandbox hosts under api.bingads.microsoft.com
- Protocols: REST with JSON (for example POST https://campaign.api.bingads.microsoft.com/CampaignManagement/v13/Campaigns) and SOAP 1.1 with a WSDL per service. SOAP retires on 31 January 2027
- Credentials: OAuth 2.0 access token from Entra ID or Google, scope `https://ads.microsoft.com/msads.manage`, plus `DeveloperToken`, `CustomerId` and `CustomerAccountId` headers
- Sandbox: sandbox.bingads.microsoft.com, universal developer token BBD37VB98, no payment method, ads never served, 20,000-row bulk uploads, one thread requested
- Rate limits: No numbers published. Per-customer 60-second sliding window on Campaign Management and Ad Insight (error 117), Bulk error 4204 with a wait of up to 15 minutes, Reporting error 207 on too many concurrent reports
- Batch limits: 100 campaigns per AddCampaigns request. Bulk upload files up to 100 MB (the docs give both 2.5 million and 4 million rows)
- Reporting delay: Up to two hours for clicks and three for conversions. Reports are submitted, polled and downloaded as files
- Roles: Super Admin, Standard user, Advertiser Campaign Manager and Viewer (read-only)
- SDKs: Microsoft.BingAds.SDK (.NET), Java, Python `msads` and PHP REST, all 13.0.30 from 29 September 2026, MIT
- MCP server: Open beta, remote HTTP, seven read-only entity tools with filters, sorting, PageSize and NextPageToken. Documented for Copilot Studio, VS Code, ChatGPT and Claude
- Status: status.ads.microsoft.com, a platform health blog with areas for each API and an RSS feed

- Scores: Reliability 60, Performance pending, Schema & documentation 79, Agent ergonomics 63, Security & auth 60, Payments & pricing 30, Task success pending, Maintenance & community 61, Transparency & trust 64 · total over the 7 assessed categories
- Why: Reliability, Graded on the public API, read with the hosted lines. · Schema & documentation, A public WSDL for each of the six SOAP services, and REST URLs with JSON templates on every operation page. · Agent ergonomics, Reports take a chosen column list and Get operations take IDs and `ReturnAdditionalFields`, but entity responses return whole objects (15). · Security & auth, OAuth 2.0 through Entra ID or Google with refresh tokens and required multi-factor authentication, but one scope, `msads.manage`, covers eve… · Payments & pricing, No x402, MPP or L402 (0). · Maintenance & community, SDK 13.0.30 published on 29 September 2026, and `msads` 13.0.30 reached PyPI on 30 September (30). · Transparency & trust, Closed service with MIT SDKs.
- Sources: 23, open questions: 7, both in the full twin
- Capabilities: ads.reporting, ads.campaigns, ads.budgets, ads.audiences, ads.creatives
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/microsoft-advertising-api.json
- Verify (for the vendor): the badge `https://www.anchorterminal.com/badges/microsoft-advertising-api.svg` or a link to https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/microsoft-advertising-api from a page on microsoft.com or one of its subdomains, or the README of github.com/BingAds/BingAds-Python-SDK, then `POST https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/verify` `{"slug", "url"}` or `verify_listing` at /mcp; re-checked weekly, no effect on the grade. Snippets in the full twin.

## Before you call it

1. Build and test against the sandbox hosts (`*.api.sandbox.bingads.microsoft.com`) with developer token BBD37VB98. Sandbox and production credentials are separate
2. Send `Authorization: Bearer <token>`, `DeveloperToken`, `CustomerId` and `CustomerAccountId` on REST calls. Use the account ID, never the eight-character account number
3. Create campaigns with `Status` set to `Paused`, then read them back before activating. No validate-only mode was found
4. On error 117 (CallRateExceeded) wait 60 seconds. On Bulk error 4204 wait up to 15 minutes
5. Read `PartialErrors` on every add, update and delete. A call can succeed for some items and fail for others

## Connect

```bash
pip install msads
```

```bash
curl -X POST https://clientcenter.api.sandbox.bingads.microsoft.com/CustomerManagement/v13/User/Query \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $MSADS_ACCESS_TOKEN" \
  -H "DeveloperToken: BBD37VB98" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"UserId": null}'
```
Full config and headless snippets are in the full page. Through letme (picks today, calling later): https://letme.dev/microsoft-advertising-api

## Similar tools

| Tool | Grade | Score | Shared capabilities | Slim |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Google Ads API | BB | 76.4 | ads.reporting, ads.campaigns, ads.budgets, ads.audiences, ads.creatives | https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/google-ads-api.min.md |
| Meta Marketing API | B | 67.7 | ads.reporting, ads.campaigns, ads.budgets, ads.audiences, ads.creatives | https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/meta-marketing-api.min.md |
| LinkedIn Marketing APIs | B | 62.4 | ads.reporting, ads.campaigns, ads.budgets, ads.audiences, ads.creatives | https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/linkedin-marketing-api.min.md |
| Amazon Ads API | C | 59 | ads.reporting, ads.campaigns, ads.budgets, ads.audiences, ads.creatives | https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/amazon-ads-api.min.md |


## Panel reviews (0, desk reviews from public material, no calls made)