Microsoft Advertising sent out emails yesterday announcing changes coming to Max CPC bidding. Microsoft wrote, “Max CPC will no longer be available when creating new non-portfolio campaigns” after October 1, 2026.
The email goes on to explain that existing campaigns created before October 1st will continue to retain Max CPC as a bidding feature, and Max CPC will remain available for campaigns using portfolio bid strategies. “Further updates on Max CPC will be provided in the future,” the email added, which implies that existing campaigns will eventually not have Max CPC.
Navah Hopkins, the Microsoft Ads Liaison, wrote more details on LinkedIn:
Microsoft Advertising is investing extensively in improving our bidding and measurement capabilities. We see that advertisers who lean on conversion based bidding and use targets (TCPA and TROAS) have an easier time meeting their goals than those who rely on legacy controls like Max CPC. This is because Max CPCs override stated goals and can lead to spend pacing irregularities.
In order to simplify bidding and make it easier for advertisers to achieve success on the Microsoft Advertising platform, we will be removing the ability to add a Max CPC to new campaigns using stand alone Max Conversion, Max Conversion Value, and Max Click bidding strategies October 1, 2026. Portfolio bidding strategies will retain the ability to add a Max CPC and existing campaigns with Max CPC will retain them.
If you want to get ahead of the update, we encourage you to run optimization experiments removing existing Max CPC. This will help you understand how your campaign may perform once Max CPC is no longer available in stand alone conversion/click-based bidding strategies.
Target impression share, eCPC, and Portfolio bidding strategies will retain the ability to add a Max CPC.
As a reminder, Microsoft Advertising continues to allow campaigns to over achieve on TCPA/TROAS regardless of budget limited status. We encourage advertisers to leverage TCPA/TROAS as volume/value levers, and when possible, use conversion value rules as more effective ways of communicating with the bidding algorithm.
Here is a screenshot of the email I received:
Forum discussion at LinkedIn.
