Bing Ads URL Auto-Tagging Finally Arrives

Rejoice, the Bing Ads team has finally rolled out one of its most-requested features — auto-tagging for ad destination URLs.

When UTM tags are added to destination URLs on ads, the performance metrics can flow into Google Analytics. Until now, advertisers have had to manually add tag URLs or rely on a third-party solution every time they uploaded new ads in their Bing Ads campaigns.

Here’s how you do it: Go to the account and billing tab in the Bing Ads web interface and check the box next to “Add UTM tags to my ads’ destination URLs”. You then have two options, either to replace all existing tags or to add tags only to those destination URLS that don’t currently have them.

Auto tagging as also now supported in the Bing Ads API, more details are available here. If your account is managed by Yahoo, you’ll need to contact your Yahoo rep to have auto-tagging enabled.

Here are the UTM tags supported via auto-tagging and the substitution values that will display in Google Analytics.

Here’s a look at what the tagging looks like when enabled.

This is a long overdue but substantial move by Bing Ads, hinting that the engineering execution is loosening up and that we may see more features rolling out now that this big item is checked off the list.