Microsoft Advertising integrates Shutterstock to help advertisers create high-performing ads

Cristina Blanaru Business, Creativity

Shutterstock announced an API integration with Microsoft Advertising. The first application of the integration provides free access to millions of commercially licensed images to customers of the Microsoft Audience Network, their programmatic native advertising offering.

Advertisers can search, preview, and apply any Shutterstock image in the Microsoft Advertising user interface, allowing them to create beautiful campaigns faster than ever and without having to leave the ad creation workflow. The new Shutterstock images feature was initially piloted in a closed beta program. Following a highly successful beta, the feature is now available to advertisers in the U.K. and the U.S and will expand to other markets later in the year. The high-quality native placement ads are served across Microsoft​ owned and operated sites including MSN, Outlook.com and Microsoft Edge, and on select premium publisher partners such as CBS Sports, Everyday Health, Fox Business, the Atlantic, Apartment Therapy and Reuters.

As the Coronavirus pandemic continues, businesses around the world are increasingly shifting to digital to meet their customers where they are spending more time than ever before. According to a recent eMarketer study, the average time spent per day with digital media is forecasted to increase by nearly 12% in 2020 compared to the previous year, with the average U.S. adult spending more than 7.5 hours online. This digital transformation trend calls for businesses to create engaging advertising content that will capture attention amidst the noise.

“Against the backdrop of a rapidly changing environment, businesses of all sizes are strapped for time and budget and looking for ways to remain top-of-mind with their audience,” said Stan Pavlovsky, CEO of Shutterstock. “Microsoft’s suite of advertising offerings empower businesses to increase ad relevance and deliver targeted visual messages that achieve their marketing goals.”

“Our seamless integration with Shutterstock’s API allows us to give our customers additional resources during this unpredictable time. By providing access to commercially licensed images for use within Microsoft Advertising campaigns, we are enabling advertisers to easily and effectively deliver top-performing ads that resonate with their target audiences” said Haily De La Cruz, Senior Program Manager at Microsoft Advertising.

The Shutterstock integration into Microsoft Advertising helps advertisers to find:

  • Authentic high-quality images that reflect scenes from everyday life
  • Images from specific regions to create localized campaigns
  • Diverse and thoughtful visual representations of all demographics and identities

Microsoft customers interested in joining the beta can contact their Microsoft Advertising account manager to get started with audience campaigns.

Shutterstock , directly and through its group subsidiaries, is a leading global provider of high-quality licensed photographs, vectors, illustrations, videos and music to businesses, marketing agencies and media organizations around the world. Working with its growing community of over 1 million contributors, Shutterstock adds hundreds of thousands of images each week, and currently has more than 330 million images and more than 18 million video clips available.

Headquartered in New York City, Shutterstock has offices around the world and customers in more than 150 countries. The company’s brands also include Bigstock, a value-oriented stock media offering; Shutterstock Custom, a custom content creation platform; Offset, a high-end image collection; PremiumBeat, a curated royalty-free music library; and Shutterstock Editorial, a premier source of editorial images for the world’s media.