For Microsoft Advertising accounts with URL by Match Type, when creating a group targeting both Search and Content, it is highly recommended to create Content match type keywords for all other keywords in the group. Not doing so will result in cost being put in unattributed row and revenue being misattributed to another keyword. This is because, even though there may not be an explicit Content keyword in the ad group, adCenter will still show your ad on the Content Network since the group has been set to target the Content Network. AdCenter will use the search match type (broad, phrase, exact) keywords to target and utilize the group content bid.
When it does so, adCenter reports this cost data (clicks, impressions, cost) as Content. It however uses the same URL as the search URL for the ad, therefore, if not using publisher tracking, the revenue gets incorrectly attributed to the search keyword used.
To help users from running into this scenario, the application will also auto-create content keywords during a nightly sync for any Hybrid groups that do not have content keywords. It will not necessarily create all content keywords for each respective keyword in the group - instead will only create the content keywords for which adCenter sends cost data. Additionally, doing so will still result in one day of cost going to unattributed as from the time the group was targeting the content network to when the Platform actually creates the content keyword, the cost data for that period is reported as unattributed.
You can identify hybrid groups in Microsoft Advertising's AdCenter by following these simple steps:
Note: There is not a column in AdCenter or Marin that solely identifies hybrid groups.
