If you are running campaigns on Microsoft Advertising (formerly Bing Ads), tracking your return on investment is critical. While Microsoft's internal dashboard provides great insights, you likely want to see how your Bing traffic interacts with your website using third-party tools like Google Analytics.
To do this, you need UTM parameters.
Fortunately, you don't have to manually build tracking links for every single ad. Microsoft Advertising offers an Auto-Tagging feature that automatically appends UTM tags to your landing page URLs for text ads, keywords, Shopping campaigns, image extensions, and sitelink extensions.
Here is the complete guide on how to set it up, how it works, and what data it passes to your analytics platform.
How to Turn On Auto-Tagging in Microsoft Advertising
You can enable UTM auto-tagging at the account level in just a few clicks. Here is how:
From the navigation menu on the left, hover over Campaigns and select Settings > Account level options.
Scroll down to the Auto-tagging of UTM section.
Select the checkbox for Add UTM tags to my destination URLs.
You will be presented with two choices regarding existing tags:
Replace all existing tags: This removes any UTM tags you have manually added and replaces them with Microsoft’s standard auto-tags.
Keep existing tags and add any that are missing: This keeps your custom tags and only fills in the blanks with Microsoft’s auto-tags.
Click Save.
⚠️ Pro Tip regarding Tracking Templates: If you are using manually added UTMs in the final URL or final URL suffix fields, combining them with UTM auto-tagging can sometimes produce duplicated UTMs. If you are using both methods, we highly recommend validating your setup using the URL test tool in your tracking templates.
Which UTM Tags Does Microsoft Add?
When a user clicks your ad, Microsoft Advertising automatically attaches standard parameters to your landing page URL. They are added in the following order:
utm_source: Identifies the site that sent the traffic. Microsoft automatically sets this to bing. (Note: Competitor parameters are not allowed in this field to prevent misattribution in third-party tools).
utm_medium: Identifies the marketing channel. Microsoft sets this to cpc (cost-per-click).
utm_campaign: Tells you exactly which campaign the clicked keyword belongs to.
utm_content: Tells you which ad group the keyword belongs to.
utm_term: Identifies the specific keyword that triggered the ad and brought the user to your site. For product ads, this identifies the Microsoft Shopping product group (Criterion ID).
Example: What Does the URL Look Like?
Let's say a user clicks on an ad for shoes from your "Clearance" ad group within your "Sales" campaign. Here is what the final URL will look like when it loads in their browser:
When looking at Google Analytics, this tells you:
Source: The person came from Bing.
Medium: The traffic is paid (CPC).
Campaign: They interacted with the "Sales" campaign.
Content: They clicked an ad in the "Clearance" ad group.
Term: The exact keyword that triggered the ad was "Shoes".
Important Things to Keep in Mind
Tags are added at display time: You will not see your landing page URLs updated with UTMs inside the Microsoft Ads interface. The auto-tags are only appended dynamically at the exact moment the ad is displayed to a search user.
Server requirements: Auto-tagging only works if your website's server allows arbitrary URL parameters. Most modern sites do, but if your site strips parameters out of URLs, tracking will fail. Check with your web developer if you aren't sure.
Universal compatibility: Because Microsoft uses the standard utm_ naming convention, this structure works perfectly across almost all major analytics tools (Google Analytics, Mixpanel, Amplitude, etc.).
How to Disable Auto-Tagging
If you decide to switch entirely to a manual tracking template or a third-party tracking software that requires different parameters, turning off auto-tagging is simple:
Navigate to Campaigns > Settings > Account level options.
Under Auto-tagging of UTM, uncheck the box for Add UTM tags to my destination URLs.
Click Save.
By enabling Microsoft Ads auto-tagging, you ensure clean, consistent data flows into your analytics platform, allowing you to easily compare your Bing Ads performance side-by-side with your other marketing channels.
