Who Advertises on MSN? Top Advertisers in the Microsoft Feed

MSN's native feed (the Microsoft Audience Network placements across MSN.com, Microsoft Start and Outlook.com) is dominated by ecommerce, finance and travel advertisers, followed closely by insurance, software and education. In OpenAdLibrary's index of 281,839 live MSN creatives as of June 2026, those six verticals account for the largest concentrations of advertiser activity, with recognizable brands like Amazon, McAfee, Leroy Merlin and Fisher Investments running alongside a long tail of direct-response and affiliate advertisers.

MSN is the second-largest network in OpenAdLibrary's overall index (behind Taboola), out of a total of 725,882 creatives tracked across 49 networks. That scale makes it worth understanding who's actually buying there, not just that the placement exists.

The vertical breakdown on MSN#

Here's how the top verticals stack up by classified live creative count in the OpenAdLibrary index as of June 2026:

Ecommerce leads, which tracks with MSN's audience: a broad, largely desktop-leaning readership browsing news and portal content, an environment well suited to product discovery and retargeting creative. Finance and travel follow closely, both categories that lean on trust signals and named institutions, which MSN's editorial-adjacent placement lends itself to more than a typical anonymous content-recommendation widget.

Advertiser types actually running on MSN#

The mix of brands captured in the index splits into a few recognizable patterns:

Established consumer brands. Names like McAfee, Amazon (with country-specific storefronts such as Amazon BR and Amazon MX appearing separately), Leroy Merlin and Smart Fit show up running straightforward product or membership offers, often localized by country and language. These are advertisers using MSN's native feed the way they'd use any other prospecting or retargeting channel: as one line in a broader media mix.

Finance and investment advertisers. Fisher Investments and similar named financial services firms appear repeatedly, and finance-oriented headlines cluster around retirement, benefits and cost-cutting angles, a pattern consistent with the vertical's strong overall share in the index (finance is the second-largest vertical platform-wide, with 24,068 live creatives across all networks).

Direct-response and lead-gen advertisers. A long tail of smaller, less globally known advertisers (brand names that read like generated business names, e.g. "SLYNUMBER" or "MONOBUNT") run offers around software downloads, insurance quotes and lifestyle products, often with headlines translated into the reader's local language rather than English-only creative.

Travel and booking platforms. Turismocity and similar booking-oriented advertisers appear with localized package and pricing offers, aimed at a browsing audience rather than someone actively searching for a specific trip.

Why advertisers choose MSN specifically#

A few structural reasons keep coming up when advertisers explain why they run on MSN rather than (or in addition to) Taboola, Outbrain or MGID:

• Reach inside Microsoft's own ecosystem. MSN, Microsoft Start and Outlook.com give access to a large, largely desktop, English- and multi-language audience that doesn't fully overlap with the publisher networks Taboola and Outbrain sell into.
• Editorial-adjacent placement. Ads sit next to news and portal content rather than clickbait-style content recommendation widgets, which some advertisers in trust-sensitive verticals (finance, insurance) prefer for brand safety reasons.
• Bid access through Microsoft Advertising. Because Audience Network traffic can be bought through the same platform as Bing Search, some advertisers end up on MSN's native feed simply by not opting out of the default network setting, then discover it performs well enough to keep running deliberately.

How the longest-running MSN ads compare#

Longevity is one of the more reliable signals of profitability in native advertising: an ad that keeps running is, in the vast majority of cases, still making money for whoever's paying for it. Among the longest-running creatives across OpenAdLibrary's entire index (all at 38 days of continuous observation, the ceiling of the current observation window), several are Microsoft Audience Network placements, spanning insurance ("Seniors Are Eligible For Bathroom Upgrades"), finance ("Retirees Are Dropping These 12 Costs"), home and garden, and entertainment verticals. That spread across categories suggests MSN's native audience responds to the same senior-skewing, benefit-and-savings-angled creative that performs well across most native networks, not a narrower MSN-specific pattern.

How localized the advertiser mix actually is#

One pattern that stands out in the MSN index more than on Taboola or Outbrain: a large share of the creative is written in languages other than English, often matched to a specific country storefront. Amazon's presence alone splits into distinct regional entries (Amazon BR, Amazon MX) rather than a single global account, and product headlines from advertisers like Leroy Merlin (a French home-improvement retailer with strong Brazilian presence) run in Portuguese. This lines up with MSN's own distribution: Microsoft Start and MSN.com serve heavily localized editions in dozens of markets, so an advertiser running a single global campaign misses most of the available inventory. Advertisers who treat MSN as a country-by-country buy, rather than one homogeneous English-language placement, tend to see the fuller picture of what's actually available.

How long MSN advertisers tend to stick around#

Run duration is one of the more useful proxies for whether an advertiser is actually happy with a network's results, since nobody keeps paying for an ad that's losing money. Several of the longest continuously observed creatives in OpenAdLibrary's entire cross-network index, all sitting at 38 days at the current observation ceiling, are Microsoft Audience Network placements: an insurance offer about bathroom upgrade eligibility, a finance piece about retirees dropping recurring costs, and a home-and-garden ad about deterring cyclists from cutting through a yard. That a Microsoft-native placement can hold its own at the top of the cross-network longevity list, next to Taboola and Outbrain entries, is a reasonably strong signal that the network supports genuinely durable campaigns, not just one-off tests that fizzle after a few days.

What headline styles work on MSN#

The advertiser examples in the index lean toward two recognizable headline patterns. The first is a straightforward value or brand statement ("Solo Ch$45.995,00 al Año - McAfee Total Protection," localized pricing plus brand name), typical of established brands running retargeting or direct-response offers. The second, more common among the direct-response and lead-gen long tail, uses a curiosity or benefit hook aimed at an older, benefits-and-savings-minded reader ("This Rebate May Cover Part of Your Health Premium," "Retirees Are Dropping These 12 Costs"). Both styles coexist in the same feed, which suggests MSN's audience is broad enough to support brand-forward and hook-forward creative side by side, rather than favoring one exclusively.

How MSN's advertiser mix compares to Taboola and Outbrain#

Health, finance and insurance dominate Taboola's advertiser base platform-wide, and finance and insurance are also strong on Outbrain, but MSN's top vertical is ecommerce, ahead of finance. That's a meaningfully different emphasis, and it likely reflects MSN's more portal-like, product-adjacent browsing context (news, shopping, email) compared to Taboola and Outbrain's placement at the bottom of long-form article content, which skews more toward health and financial storytelling formats. If your product is ecommerce rather than a health or finance offer, that difference alone is a reason MSN may outperform relative to your results on other native networks, even before considering cost.

What this means if you're deciding whether to advertise on MSN#

If your product fits one of the top verticals (ecommerce, finance, travel, insurance, software or education), and you already have creative built for a native/content-feed format rather than search or social, MSN is a reasonable test. The advertiser mix suggests both large established brands and smaller direct-response players can find traction there; it isn't a channel reserved for one or the other.

If you want to see exactly what's currently running before committing budget, rather than guess from category averages, OpenAdLibrary's native ad spy tool lets you search live MSN creatives by advertiser, vertical and longevity, the same data behind the numbers in this article. Cross-referencing what's already running (and for how long) against your own planned angle is a faster way to gut-check fit than launching blind.

Related reading#

For the mechanics of how MSN's native feed itself works, formats and targeting, see our MSN native ads guide. If you're weighing MSN against other native options, our roundup of best native ad networks ranks networks by actual live ad volume rather than self-reported reach claims, and top native advertisers by network breaks down advertiser share across Taboola, Outbrain and MGID for comparison.