Mediaocean said on November 4, 2026 that its Prisma platform had completed a Prisma Direct integration with the Microsoft Advertising Platform, connecting three parts of search buying that agencies have typically handled in separate systems. Buyers can send orders from Prisma to Microsoft Advertising, receive campaign performance data back into Prisma, and receive Microsoft Advertising invoices electronically in Prisma's Invoices module, according to Mediaocean.

The announcement takes Prisma Direct into search for the first time. Mediaocean launched the product in March to automate direct deals between agencies and premium media companies, with Disney as the first partner and Warner Bros. Discovery added in September. Microsoft is the first search platform named. The order connection itself is not new, though: PPC Land reported in December 2024 that Microsoft Advertising had launched automated order insertion through Prisma, with billing and reconciliation listed for "the coming months."

In Short

Mediaocean makes Prisma, software that agencies use to plan, buy and pay for advertising, and it has now hooked Prisma up to Microsoft's search ad system so that orders go in and results and bills come back without anyone retyping them. That matters to agencies and brands running Microsoft search campaigns through Prisma, because the same campaign details often have to be entered and checked in several places. Sending orders has worked since December 2024, so the real change is that performance numbers and invoices now arrive in Prisma on their own.

What the integration does

Mediaocean describes Prisma as "a trusted system of record for global media investment." In agency practice, that means the place where an order is approved, where spending is tracked against it and where the supplier's bill is matched before a client is invoiced. The integration touches all three steps.

Orders

Orders created in Prisma "flow directly into the Microsoft Advertising Platform without duplicate data entry," according to the release. Mediaocean frames the problem as "a familiar source of friction" for teams that manage search alongside other media: typing the same campaign information into the buying system and again into the search platform. Each re-entry is a chance for a budget, flight date or account number to differ between the two.

Performance data

The second piece runs in the other direction. Campaign data "flows back into Prisma automatically," according to Mediaocean, giving buyers "consistent, in-platform visibility into pacing and performance." With order and delivery figures in the same system, teams can monitor spend and reconcile performance "without switching between platforms or manually importing data into Prisma," the release states. Mediaocean does not list which metrics are passed back, or how often the data refreshes.

Invoices

The third piece is billing. Microsoft Advertising Platform invoices "flow electronically into Prisma's Invoices module," according to the release, "eliminating manual entry and reliance on third-party services while simplifying reconciliation." The third-party services are not named. The wording implies that, until now, Microsoft's bills reached Prisma either by hand or through an outside processing service before they could be matched to an order. A direct feed removes that step.

What the two companies said

Drew Kane, Chief Product Officer at Prisma, described the problem in the release. "Search remains one of the most important channels for marketers, yet the workflow often requires teams to move between separate planning, buying, reporting, and billing systems," Kane said. "By integrating the Microsoft Advertising Platform with Prisma Direct, buyers can send orders directly from the platform they already use to manage media investments, while performance data and invoices flow back automatically. The result is a more connected and efficient search buying workflow across the campaign lifecycle."

Microsoft's statement came from Yolanda Lam, GM, Global Head of Agency Development at Microsoft Advertising. "Advertisers want greater connectivity between the systems they use to plan media and the platforms where campaigns are activated," Lam said. "By connecting the Microsoft Advertising Platform directly with Prisma, we're helping agencies create a more consistent workflow across campaign management, performance, and billing so they can manage their investments more efficiently."

Both statements are pitched at agencies. Neither names an agency, an advertiser or a market where the integration is in use.

The November 4 release presents the order connection as part of the new integration. It does not mention that Microsoft and Mediaocean announced an earlier version on December 4, 2024. That launch, covered by PPC Land three days later, let buyers insert search orders from Prisma into the Microsoft Advertising Platform without logging in separately or circulating PDF documents for review and signature. Approval times fell to minutes, according to that coverage.

Several details from 2024 bear on what has changed. Buyers had to complete an account mapping process between their Prisma instance and Microsoft Advertising before the automation worked, and set-up ran through Mediaocean's Customer Engineering team or a Microsoft Advertising account team. Publicis Media, part of the Publicis Groupe holding company, took part in the development alongside both companies' engineers through its Publicis Media Exchange unit, which uses Prisma as a core platform. Microsoft's executive on that announcement was Nathalie Krup, then Head of NA Agency Development, and Mediaocean's was Ramsey McGrory, then its Chief Development Officer. The roadmap at the time included "planned expansions to billing and reconciliation functionalities in the coming months."

Electronic invoicing arrives 23 months after that roadmap was published. Neither company says whether the new invoicing feed is the expansion planned in 2024, whether the account mapping requirement still applies, or whether buyers on the original order integration move to Prisma Direct automatically. One shift is visible in the titles: the Microsoft executive in 2024 led North American agency development, while Lam holds a global role. The release, however, names no countries.

Prisma Direct began with television. Mediaocean launched it on March 31 as a workflow product for direct transactions across streaming, video and connected TV, with Disney as the first media company to connect through an API built on the technology behind Disney Campaign Manager. Ordering, trafficking, campaign analytics, billing and reconciliation were the five functions covered, and the product was slated to go live in the third quarter of 2026. Warner Bros. Discovery became the second media partner on September 30, starting with a link to its self-service platform Neo.

Search is a different kind of purchase. In television, a direct deal reserves specific inventory at a negotiated price. In search engine marketing, placement is decided query by query in keyword auctions and priced per click, so an order sent from an agency's buying system works as an authorized budget for a period rather than a reservation of placements. The release reflects that difference in what it covers. It talks about orders, pacing, spend and invoices, the financial wrapper around a campaign, and says nothing about keywords, bids or ad copy.

That leaves a separate layer untouched. Agencies that manage bids across engines often use tools such as Google's Search Ads 360, which handles shared bidding and reporting across Google Ads, Microsoft Advertising and other engines. Prisma's connection sits beside that work, on the side of the business where media planners, buyers and finance teams agree what can be spent and check what was billed.

Microsoft's narrower buy-side focus

The integration comes as Microsoft concentrates its buying tools on a single platform. In May 2025, the company said it would close Microsoft Invest, the demand-side platform built from Xandr and originally AppNexus, and focus its buy-side investment on the Microsoft Advertising Platform. PPC Land reported the closure in June 2025. Microsoft Invest shut down on February 28, 2026.

Microsoft's latest results show the size of the business at the other end of the connection. The company reported on October 28 that its Search and advertising revenue rose 10% to $6.55bn in the quarter to September 30. That line now combines Bing, Microsoft Edge, MSN and LinkedIn's marketing and Premium subscription businesses, so it no longer isolates search advertising. The November 4 release does not say whether LinkedIn campaigns, Microsoft's display formats or campaign types beyond search are covered by the Prisma connection. It refers only to search.

Mediaocean's year of connections

The Microsoft deal is one of a run of integrations Mediaocean has announced around Prisma in 2026. Basis connected its platform to Prisma, Innovid and Protected in January, with two-way synchronization of contracted and delivered spend; in April, Basis embedded Protected's verification inside campaigns. In June, Nielsen agreed to bring audience reporting into Prisma for linear national TV, with a September launch target, and Guideline linked its MediaTools planning system so that planned and actual spend could be compared without spreadsheets.

Artificial intelligence has run alongside the plumbing. Mediaocean introduced NIVO AI on June 11, built on Innovid's ad serving infrastructure, with pilots it said cut campaign setup work by up to 90%, a figure the company supplied. In September it set up Mediaocean AI Ventures, an investment programme backed by CVC Capital Partners, TA Associates and Eterna Growth Partners, without disclosing a fund size.

The scale figures in the November 4 release match those Mediaocean has used all year: more than $200bn in annualized ad spend running through its platforms and more than 100,000 users worldwide. Mediaocean also owns Innovid and Protected. The release calls Prisma "the trusted industry platform for advanced, AI-driven media buying, optimization, and execution," although nothing in the Microsoft integration, as described, involves AI.

Why reconciliation matters to search teams

For agencies, the cost of disconnected systems shows up in labour rather than media prices. A Fluency benchmark of more than 170 US agencies and in-house teams, published in March, found that 87% of advertisers still relied on manual budget pacing and that routine ad operations tasks took an average of 39.75 hours per strategist per month. That survey covered independent agencies and in-house teams rather than Prisma users specifically, but the work it describes - checking spend against plans and bills against delivery - is the same work the new integration targets.

Search adds its own complications. Spending depends on auction outcomes and can move daily, so the final bill can differ from the order because delivery is not fixed in advance. An order system that already holds delivery data and the supplier's invoice can, in principle, match the three without an export. Whether that cuts the hours agencies spend on reconciliation is something neither company has measured publicly. The release offers no time savings, error rates or customer results.

What the release does not say

Several practical points are missing. There is no general availability date beyond the word "completion," and no list of markets or currencies. Fees, if any, are not mentioned. Mediaocean's March launch of Prisma Direct listed reduced tech fees and fewer intermediaries among its expected outcomes, but the November 4 release makes no claim about cost. It does not say how often performance data is refreshed or which metrics are included, whether invoice data arrives at campaign or account level, or how disputes and credits are handled.

The release also stays silent on other search platforms. Google Ads is not mentioned, and Mediaocean has not said whether Prisma Direct will connect to it or to other search engines.

Timeline

Summary

Who: Mediaocean, owner of the Prisma media management platform, and Microsoft Advertising. Drew Kane, Chief Product Officer at Prisma, and Yolanda Lam, GM, Global Head of Agency Development at Microsoft Advertising, gave statements. The integration is aimed at agencies and brands that buy Microsoft search ads through Prisma.

What: A Prisma Direct integration with the Microsoft Advertising Platform. Orders created in Prisma go straight into Microsoft Advertising, campaign performance and pacing data return to Prisma automatically, and Microsoft Advertising invoices arrive electronically in Prisma's Invoices module without manual entry or third-party services. Order insertion between the two systems has existed since December 2024; the performance data and invoice feeds are the additions.

When: Announced on November 4, 2026, at 9:00 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. Mediaocean describes the integration as complete but gives no separate availability date.

Where: Released from New York. The release names no markets, currencies or countries where the integration works.

Why: Agencies running search alongside other media often re-enter the same campaign details across planning, buying, reporting and billing systems. Mediaocean is extending Prisma Direct, launched for direct TV deals in March, to search, while Microsoft has concentrated its buy-side investment on the Microsoft Advertising Platform since closing its Invest DSP in February. Neither company has published time savings or customer results.