How to Verify my Microsoft Advertising Account? (Advertiser Identity Verification)

Microsoft Advertising requires advertiser identity verification to ensure that customers see ads from trusted sources. This is a process for verifying an advertiser’s business and/or their individual legal identity. This program aims to promote a more secure advertising ecosystem by providing greater transparency to both advertisers and searchers online. When advertiser identity verification is needed for your account, you will receive an email notification and a separate notification on your advertising account with steps to complete your verification. You will have the chance of submitting official documentation as proof for verifying your business name and location. Microsoft Advertising identity verification will lead to a safer and more secure advertising experience online for both advertisers and searchers.

How does advertiser identity verification work?

1. Microsoft Advertising will request advertiser identity verification for one or more of your accounts via email. You will also receive an in-product notification on your Microsoft Advertising account.
2. Follow the instructions in the email request to complete identity verification. You may be required to verify your status as a business, an individual, or both.
3. You must complete all identity verification related tasks within 30 days of receiving the email request or we will pause your account and your ads will not show. In that case, once you have successfully completed identity verification, we will enable your account and will start showing your ads again.
4. Review and approval of your verification submission may take 3-5 business days to complete. In some cases, you may be asked to submit new supporting documentation or you may be asked to complete the steps up to 3 times. This is to ensure a thorough review is completed. Once you have exhausted all attempts, and if you need to appeal a decision, you may contact support. For more information on your verification status, please see different Identity verification statuses further down.

Notification methods:

Advertisers will receive an email notification when they need to undergo the process of advertiser identity verification. They will see a verification indicator in the Microsoft Advertising Accounts summary grid.

“Not verified” status will look like this:

“Verified” status will look like this:

Advertisers will see a notification in their Notifications queue on their Microsoft Advertising account. Selecting the notification will open the Accounts summary > Notifications tab which will list out all the accounts that have pending action for the advertiser in the form of a warning alert.

Advertisers can go to Tools > Preferences > Account settings > Verification status in order to see the details of their status and begin the verification process. A detailed description of each verification status can be found on the help bubble next to the Verification status label. You can see them all by clicking on the encircled question mark. Details are also mentioned further down on this article.

Main points to keep in mind:

Only a Super Admin user on the account can complete verification. As of now, agencies cannot complete verification on behalf of an account owner.

You are only required to complete identity verification for the Microsoft Advertising accounts that we notify you about. You can't opt-in other accounts for identity verification.

Advertisers promoting products or services; information, advisory, or educational content; or content related to regulated industries will be prioritized for verification. Businesses that have rebranded or changed their account business location may be flagged to complete the advertiser identity verification process again.

If the advertiser is an organization, they should choose the verification type as a business, and the advertiser will be required to submit official documentation that includes their legal name and address. The payments profile admin will also be required to submit a government-issued ID.

If they are submitting as an individual, a user from the advertiser’s end will be required to submit a government-issued ID. Acceptable documents by location are passports, driver’s licenses, identity cards, and residence permits (selection varies by market).

The advertiser is only required to complete the identity verification if Microsoft Advertising notifies them to do so for certain accounts. The steps required to complete the identity verification for certain accounts may differ, depending on their account and structure, their billing setup, and if they are advertising on behalf of an organization or individual. In all circumstances, please make sure to follow all the instructions in the email and in-account notifications that you receive.

Currently, advertiser identity verification (AIV) is a one-time snapshot upload. It will only capture the document’s validity at the time of upload. Any changes that happen to the business or the individual after an approved verified status will not impact the verification status of the advertiser.

You can currently complete verification for one account at a time. We don't currently support verification of multiple accounts in parallel, except if another account that you own shares the same business location. In this case, other accounts which share the same location will be automatically verified as well.

Types of verification

Depending on the situation, you can choose to verify as a business, as an individual, or both.

Business: You can select “Business verification” and use your company email address, for instance ******@companyname.com.

Business + Individual (both): You can select “Business verification” and use a public domain email address, for instance ******@gmail.com or ******@outlook.com.

Individual: You can select “Individual verification” and use a public domain email address, for instance ******@gmail.com or ******@outlook.com.

Verify as a business

You can choose to verify as a business if you represent or are promoting a business, for example, a law firm or a plumbing service. Otherwise, if you are representing or promoting yourself as an individual, see Verify as an individual.

1. Select the profile picture in the upper-right corner of any Microsoft Advertising page to view the list of manager accounts you have access to.
2. After selecting the manager account, select the account that has a request for advertiser identity verification.
3. From the top menu, select Tools > Preferences > Account settings.
4. Under Verification Status, select Become a verified advertiser.

1. Select Verify as a business.

1. Review and verify your account's business name and location. Please make sure  your “Legal business name” and “Business location” are both correct. If the information turns out to be incorrect, you should update the information in the Account settings before proceeding.

Note: The information you include in this section must match the documents that you submit for verification later, or your verification will fail. You can make updates in your Account settings to make sure that your information is up to date.

1. Enter information about your legally registered business, including Business website and Business email address. Advertisers must input their business website, domain, business registration ID, and registration number, then upload relevant documents to support business and domain verifications. An example of a domain verification is the receipt the customer received when purchasing or renewing their domain. (Example of a public domain: yahoo.com/gmail.com/xxx ; non-public domain: CompanyName.com/xxx).

1. Once you enter the Business email address, request a verification code by selecting Send verification code. You'll receive an email at your business email address with the verification code.
2. Enter the verification code from the email under Enter code.

Note: Please remember that after receiving the verification code, you only have 2 minutes for entering it before it expires. If you don't receive a verification code or if you fail to enter it within 2 minutes of receipt, you may request additional verification codes once the Send Verification option is re-enabled 2 minutes after the initial request. If you still don’t receive the verification code after checking your spam/junk folder, please add the below emails to your safe senders list:

******@accountprotection.microsoft.com

adctr@microsoft.com

******@microsoft.onmicrosoft.com

token@microsoft.com

1. Under Business documents, provide documentation that contains your business name and address that will be used for verification. Please submit documentation that proves your business is located at the provided address. Depending on your country of business, the documents for verification may be different.
2. Under Website documents, you can optionally provide proof of your registered rights to the website. Please submit documentation which proves that your business has registered rights to the domain. If you provided an email address outside of your business domain, then you also need to provide documentation that we can use to verify your personal identity.
3. Select Next.
4. Review the information provided.
5. Select Submit application.

Verify as an individual

You can choose to verify as an individual if you are representing or promoting yourself as an individual; for example, if you are a freelance writer or food truck owner. You may also need to choose individual verification if you provide an email outside of your business domain. If you represent or are promoting a business, see Verify as business.

1. Select the profile picture in the upper-right corner of any Microsoft Advertising page to view the list of manager accounts that you have access to.
2. After selecting the manager account, select the account that has a request for advertiser identity verification.
3. From the top menu, select Tools > Preferences > Account settings.
4. Under Verification Status, select Become a verified advertiser.
5. Select Verify as an individual if you are representing or promoting yourself as an individual, or if you are providing an email address outside your business domain.

Note: For individual verification, the account's legal business name in Account settings must match your full name (first and last). Go to Account settings and edit your Legal business name as needed to continue with individual verification.

1. Select Next.
2. Provide documentation that Microsoft Advertising can use to verify your personal identity. Depending on your country, the documents for verification may be different. Similarly, depending on your country of business, the documents for verification may be different.

Note:

1. You need to upload screen captures of the original documents for the purposes of verification. Pre-scanned uploads of documents may lead to verification failure.
2. Currently, if you are verifying in India, your Driving License is not a supported form of verification.
3. Provide a valid image to verify yourself. Please note that pre-scanned or existing photographs may lead to verification failure.
4. Select Next.
5. Review the information you provided and then select Submit application.

Business verification + Individual verification (both)

1. Customers must input their details for their business website, domain, registration number, and upload relevant documents to support business and domain verifications. If the email ID entered is from the public domain, such as Gmail, the advertiser would need to also verify themselves as Business + Individual.
2. You must input additional details requested such as first name, last name and select the document for individual verification.

3. You then need to take a live selfie by using a personal device (phone/tablet/computer).

1. 
   4. Lastly, you will need to review the information provided, then proceed with submitting the verification request.
   

Identity verification status

You can view your verification status in the Account summary page. To view identity verification status for all accounts, follow these steps:

1. Select the profile picture in the upper-right corner of any Microsoft Advertising page to view the list of manager accounts you have access to.
2. After selecting the manager account, select the account which has a request for advertiser identity verification.
3. From the top menu, select Tools > Accounts > Account summary.
4. Select the Management tab.
5. If you don't see the Verification status column, select Columns > Modify columns to add it.
6. If action is required (for example, the verification status is Not verified), then select Account settings from the three vertical dots menu.

The identity verification status can be:

• Action required: Action is required because the application for verification has been submitted and some additional requested information has not been received. You need to complete verification soon or your accounts will be paused, and we'll stop showing your ads.
• Failed: The account is paused because we could not verify your identity. Please review your account information and submit a new application or appeal.
• Not verified: The account has not been verified. For example, an application for verification has not been submitted. You need to complete verification soon or your accounts will be paused, and we'll stop showing your ads.
• Pending: The application for verification has been submitted and we're reviewing it. We'll send email with updates and requests for additional information as needed.
• Verification not needed: The advertiser account does not need verification or has not been selected for pilot.
• Verified advertiser The advertiser account has been verified.
• Verified limited: You requested to verify as a business, but only your personal identity has been verified. Instead of the legal business name, your first and last name will be shown with ads.

As it was mentioned above, please note that the review and approval of your verification submission may take 3-5 business days to complete. In some cases, you may be asked to submit new supporting documentation or you may be asked to complete the steps up to 3 times. This is to ensure a thorough review is completed. Once you have exhausted all attempts, if you need to appeal a decision, please contact support.