What: After assuring users it would continue showing average position, Microsoft has followed suit with Google and announced it’s deprecating the metric in April this year. It was announced in an article published on 15th January which highlighted the increased insight when moving from average position over to the new performance metrics.

Why: According to the blog post, one of the reasons for the change is based on advertiser feedback and Microsoft’s insights into the “ever-changing industry standards in digital advertising”. They believe it will limit confusion and make performance reporting more reliable as the new prominence metrics provide clearer insight, help diagnose fluctuations in ad performance, and signal if and when to take a particular action.

The result: Advertisers will still be able to make use of average position until the beginning of April, until moving over to the Top and Absolute Top impression metrics. Microsoft added: “Adding these new metrics and removing some others, like impression share to lost bit, relevance, and expected CTR, brings this reporting closer to parity with Google Ads.”