Google Ads alternatives for EU stores: Microsoft Ads and Pinterest

For an online store selling in the EU, Microsoft Ads and Pinterest are the two extra ad channels worth testing once Google and Meta already bring orders. Microsoft Shopping campaigns run in all 27 EU countries and both platforms read the product feed you already built for Google. Bing holds 5.58% of searches in Europe and 15.66% on desktop (StatCounter, October 2026). LinkedIn is for B2B, and Snapchat and Reddit can wait.

Country availability, feed rules and budgets below come from the official help pages of Microsoft Advertising, Pinterest and LinkedIn, linked in the text and checked in November 2026. The admin steps are for CloudCart, an ecommerce platform for online stores across Europe, and plan limits are from Pricing.

Which ad channels work for an online store in Europe

Microsoft Ads and Pinterest work for a European store today: both have ads, a product catalog built from a feed and a tag that measures purchases.

Start from the stage your customer is in. Microsoft Ads catches a person who is already searching for a product. Pinterest shows the product to a person who is collecting ideas and will choose later. LinkedIn reaches people by job title and company. How each ad type fits the funnel is explained in our guide to the types of online advertising.

Channel	Availability in the EU	Catalog from a feed	Tag in the store	Good fit for
Microsoft Ads (Bing)	Shopping campaigns in all 27 EU countries, plus Norway, Switzerland and the UK	Yes, through Microsoft Merchant Center	UET tag through Google Tag Manager	Stores that already profit from Google Search and Shopping
Pinterest	Direct ad accounts in 13 EU countries, partner-managed accounts in others; shopping ads in some of those markets	Yes: XML (RSS 2.0, Atom 1.0), CSV, TSV, Google Sheets	Pinterest tag through Google Tag Manager	Visual niches: home, fashion, jewelry, handmade, weddings
LinkedIn	Ads from $10 a day	No retail product catalog needed	Insight Tag through Google Tag Manager	B2B stores and wholesale
Snapchat, Reddit	Confirm your target country in each Ads Manager	Outside this test	Snap Pixel, Reddit Pixel	Later, when you know your buyers are there

If you sell in several countries, plan the feeds first. A CloudCart feed is published in the store's main currency and language, and a store for another country, with its own language and currency, has its own feed. A German store and a Polish store each give you a separate feed address, added as its own catalog for the matching market.

Microsoft Ads (Bing Ads): is it worth it for a European store

Yes, Microsoft Ads is worth it when your Google campaigns are already profitable, because it carries the same campaigns over to Bing traffic with very little new work. Microsoft Advertising (formerly Bing Ads) shows ads in the Bing search engine. According to the Microsoft Advertising documentation on product ads, Microsoft Shopping campaigns and product ads are available in every EU member state, from Austria, Germany and Italy to Poland, Czechia and the Baltic countries, and also in Norway, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

The volume is smaller than Google's, and on desktop it is hard to ignore. In StatCounter's Europe figures for October 2026 Google has 88.77% of searches and Bing 5.58%. On desktop Bing reaches 15.66% against 73.59% for Google. Microsoft Ads brings the most to stores whose customers order from a computer: office supplies, electronics, spare parts, B2B deliveries.

How to launch Microsoft Ads, step by step

1. In CloudCart: check the Google feed. In Apps → XML Feed → Google choose the product identifier (Product ID, SKU or barcode) and copy the feed address. Give the categories you advertise a Google category, because that is where the g:google_product_category field comes from. How many products go into the feed depends on your plan: 100 on Baby Pack, 2,000 on Starter Pack, 7,500 on CC Pro and 10,000 on CC Master.
2. In Google Merchant Center: keep the feed clean. Microsoft's Google Import can bring your Google Merchant Center feed into Microsoft Merchant Center, so errors fixed at Google stay fixed at Microsoft. The preparation is covered in our guide to Google Shopping and Merchant Center.
3. In Microsoft Merchant Center: import the products. Create a store under Tools → Merchant Center, open its Import tab and start a new import from Google. Select every market you sell in: offers from a market you leave unselected are not imported.
4. In Microsoft Advertising: import the campaigns from Google Ads. Sign in with your Google account and choose the account and the campaigns to bring over. Microsoft imports most supported campaigns, ads, targeting and extensions by default, and you can adjust budgets on the way in. Microsoft has no broad match negatives, so broad match negative keywords arrive as phrase match. Review bids, budgets, location targeting and negatives after the import.
5. In Microsoft Advertising: create a UET tag. UET (Universal Event Tracking) is Microsoft's code that records visits and purchases. Create it under Conversion Tracking → UET tags and note the Tag ID.
6. In CloudCart and Google Tag Manager: add the UET tag. In Apps → Google Tag Manager → Settings enter the container code (GTM-XXXXXXX). The app is in each of the four plans. Install Apps → Data Layer too: it sends the store's events (view_item, add_to_cart, purchase) to the data layer. Without it GTM loads but has no cart or order data. In GTM add a tag of the type Microsoft Advertising Universal Event Tracking with your Tag ID and an All Pages trigger. Use the purchase event for the order value.
7. In Google Tag Manager: pass the consent signal. Since May 5, 2025 Microsoft enforces consent signals for visits from the European Economic Area, the UK and Switzerland, as announced on the Microsoft Advertising blog. In UET Consent Mode the ad_storage setting is "granted" or "denied" according to the visitor's choice in your cookie banner. The alternative is an IAB TCF 2.0 string from a consent management platform. Use one method only.
8. In Microsoft Advertising: check the tag status. Start spending only when the UET tag reports as active and a test order shows up as a conversion.

Important: if you plan many changes in Google Ads, schedule a recurring import (daily, weekly or monthly). Otherwise the two platforms drift apart and the budgets in Microsoft stay old.

Pinterest ads: where they run in Europe and who they suit

Pinterest ads run across most of the EU, with two ways in. The Pinterest ads overview lists the countries where a business sets up an ad account directly with Pinterest: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and Sweden in the EU, plus Norway, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. In other markets, among them Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Greece, Bulgaria, Croatia, Slovenia and the Baltic countries, the account is opened through Pinterest's advertising partner, which manages it and bills you locally.

Shopping ads have a narrower map: Pinterest states that they are available only in some of its ad markets. Before you reshoot photos for a catalog, open Catalogs in your business account and confirm that it is offered for your country.

Pinterest is a visual search engine for ideas. The channel suits products that are chosen with the eye and planned ahead: furniture and decor, clothes and accessories, jewelry, handmade items, wedding and party products.

Expect modest traffic at the start. In StatCounter's social media figures for Europe in October 2026, Pinterest accounts for 2.48% of the visits social networks send to websites, against 82.24% for Facebook. Treat Pinterest as a small-budget test and keep Meta as your main social channel.

What Pinterest requires before you add a catalog

Pinterest accepts a catalog only from a business account with a claimed website, an installed Pinterest tag and a site with easy-to-find contact details, a shipping policy and a refund policy. These are the requirements in the Pinterest guide to retail catalogs. The feed can be XML (RSS 2.0 or Atom 1.0), CSV, TSV or Google Sheets, at a fixed address that Pinterest reads every day.

Pinterest catalog field	Requirement	What to check in CloudCart
id	Up to 127 characters, unique	The identifier chosen in the Google feed
title	Up to 500 characters	The product name
description	Up to 10,000 characters, plain text	The product description
link	The page of the same product, up to 511 characters	The product address in the store
image_link	At least 1000 × 1500 pixels, no template images	The main product photo
price	With an ISO currency code, for example 24.99 EUR	The price in the store's main currency
availability	in stock, out of stock or preorder	The product's stock status
item_group_id	Required when a product has variants	The variant group, when your plan lists variants separately

The main image is vertical, 2:3. If your photos are square on a white background, prepare one vertical lifestyle photo for at least your best sellers.

How to connect Pinterest to CloudCart, step by step

1. In Pinterest: open a business account and an ad account. Set the country, the currency and the company's billing details. In a partner-managed market the ad account is created through the partner.
2. In CloudCart and Pinterest: claim the domain. Pinterest offers several ways, including an HTML tag and a DNS TXT record. If CloudCart manages the domain's DNS, add the TXT record in Settings → Domains → Manage DNS.
3. In Google Tag Manager: add the Pinterest tag. The container is already connected in Apps → Google Tag Manager. Add the Pinterest Tag template from the template gallery, with the base code on all pages and events for add to cart and purchase. They read the add_to_cart and purchase events the Data Layer app sends. Fire the tags only after the visitor accepts advertising cookies. Under EU rules, third-party cookies for behavioural advertising need consent before they are set, and withdrawing must be as easy as accepting (Your Europe: online privacy and cookies). The setup is in our guide to GDPR and cookies.
4. In Pinterest: add the catalog. In Catalogs add the Google feed address from Apps → XML Feed → Google as a data source of type XML. Read the error report after the first fetch. If availability or the image size fails, fix it in the products in CloudCart, never in Pinterest.
5. In Pinterest: create product groups. Split the catalog by category or margin, for example "Decor under €30" and "Furniture over €200".
6. In Pinterest: launch a campaign with a sales objective. Choose the product groups, the budget and the schedule, and target only the countries you deliver to.

LinkedIn ads: when they make sense for an online store

LinkedIn ads make sense for a store that sells to companies, because it is the only one of these channels where you pick the audience by job title, company and industry. According to LinkedIn's own budget guidance, the minimum daily budget is $10 for any ad format, and with a lifetime budget a new campaign needs at least $100.

For a clothing or cosmetics store LinkedIn rarely pays off. For a supplier of office consumables, restaurant equipment, packaging or wholesale goods it can: one company orders again and again and the average order is high.

1. In CloudCart: prepare the B2B side. Customer groups with a login and their own discount, quantity price tiers and payment by invoice for companies only. The setup is in our guide to a B2B online store, and the options are on the B2B wholesale page.
2. In Google Tag Manager: add the LinkedIn Insight Tag. Under Tag Configuration choose the LinkedIn Insight Tag template from the gallery, enter the Partner ID from Campaign Manager and an All Pages trigger.
3. In LinkedIn Campaign Manager: create a conversion and an audience. The conversion is the registration of a company account or the first order. The audience is by job function (purchasing, site manager) and industry.
4. In LinkedIn: send people to a specific page. A price list for companies or a wholesale category works better than the home page.

Snapchat and Reddit: why they can wait

Snapchat and Reddit are a poor first test for most European stores, because they send little traffic to websites. In StatCounter's social media figures for Europe in October 2026, Reddit accounts for 1.8% of the visits social networks send to websites, and Snapchat is absent from the six networks listed.

Before you plan a budget, open the Ads Manager of the platform and check that your target country is in its location list. Test them later, when you already know your buyers are there.

What it costs to test a new ad channel

Testing a new channel costs the budget you set in the ad platform, plus the work on the feed and the tag. Only LinkedIn publishes a clear minimum; in Microsoft Ads and Pinterest you set the daily budget yourself.

Cost	Microsoft Ads	Pinterest	LinkedIn
Minimum budget	You set the daily budget; review imported bids and budgets	You set the daily budget in Ads Manager	$10 a day, or $100 lifetime for a new campaign
Feed in CloudCart	The Google feed, imported through Google Merchant Center	The Google feed as an XML source	None needed
Tag in CloudCart	UET through Google Tag Manager, on every plan	Pinterest tag through Google Tag Manager, on every plan	Insight Tag through Google Tag Manager, on every plan
Setup time	Shortest: campaigns are imported from Google Ads	Medium: catalog, groups, photos	Medium: audiences and B2B pages

Work out the test budget from your margin. If the average order brings €20 gross profit, each order from the new channel has to cost less than €20 in ads, or you lose money. That limit is called break-even ROAS and is explained with examples in our guide to ROAS and ROI. Give the channel four weeks and a budget you can afford to lose, then compare it with Google and Meta by cost per order.

When to try a new ad channel: 6 checks

Try a new channel when Google and Meta already bring orders at an acceptable cost and each extra euro there returns less than the one before.

1. The main channels are profitable. Google Search, Shopping and Meta have had at least a month of stable cost per order below your break-even limit. If they have not, fix them first, starting with Google Ads and Meta Ads.
2. Measurement works. GA4 shows purchases with their value, and Google Tag Manager is connected in Apps → Google Tag Manager, as described in our guide to GA4 and Google Tag Manager.
3. The feed is clean. Google Merchant Center shows no disapproved products, the categories have a Google category and the photos are at least 1000 pixels wide.
4. The store keeps its visitors. A signup form in Marketing → Subscribers → Subscribe Forms (from Starter Pack) and an abandoned cart reminder in Orders → Abandoned.
5. The product fits the channel. A visual product for Pinterest, a product people search for on a computer for Microsoft Ads, a business customer for LinkedIn.
6. You have four weeks for the test. In the first week the platform is still learning, so leave the budget and the ads alone for a few days at a time.

How to measure sales from Pinterest and Microsoft Ads in CloudCart

CloudCart measures sales from a new channel in two ways: by the site the visitor comes from and by the UTM tags on the link.

• Analytics → Visits by traffic source (referral). Available on every plan. It recognizes Pinterest and Snapchat as social networks and Bing as a search engine, and the detailed view shows the conversion and the amount by source.
• Analytics → Sales by Source / Medium. Reads the UTM tags, for example utm_source=pinterest and utm_medium=paid. UTM tracking is in CC Pro and CC Master according to Pricing. On the smaller plans, read the same tags in GA4.
• The platforms' own reports. Microsoft and Pinterest count purchases by their own tags and their own attribution rules, and only for visitors who accepted advertising cookies, so their numbers differ from the orders in the store. Base your decision on the orders in CloudCart.

Compare the channels by the same two numbers: cost per order and gross profit per order.

Frequently asked questions

A question about the feed or the tags in the admin? Write to support@cloudcart.com. If you are just starting, create a store for €1 and launch your first campaigns this month.