Until the beginning of 2006, all of the ads displayed on the MSN Search engine were supplied by Overture (and later Yahoo!).

In November 2006 Microsoft acquired Deep Metrix, a company situated in Gatineau, Canada, that created web-analytics software.

In October, 2007 the beta version of Microsoft Project Gatineau was released to a limited number of participants.

[3][4] In May 2007, Microsoft agreed to purchase the digital marketing solutions parent company, aQuantive, for roughly $6 billion.

[6] Microsoft acquired ScreenTonic on May 3, 2007,[7] AdECN on July 26, 2007,[8] and YaData on February 27, 2008, and merged their technologies into adCenter.

[9] On February 23, 2009, the Publisher Leadership Council was created under the umbrella of Microsoft Advertising.

The council was responsible for delivering the next-generation advertising platform for the publishers of digital media resulting in the formation of Microsoft pubCenter.

[13][14] On June 29, 2015, AOL Inc. announced a deal and partnership to take over the majority of Microsoft's ad sales business.

[18] On August 5, 2019, Microsoft acquired PromoteIQ, a leading provider of vendor marketing technology to online retailers and brands.

In 2021, Microsoft Advertising began rolling out LinkedIn audience observation and bid management targeting, allowing advertisers to monitor and bid against common LinkedIn Ads audiences, including company size, industry, job function, as well as lists of individual companies.