Bing conversion tracking: the UET tag, step by step

Bing conversion tracking isn’t a new discipline. It’s the same process you already know from GA4 and Google Ads, with a different tag at the end of the pipe. The one genuine obstacle is the Microsoft Advertising interface — it’s more nested and more confusing than Google’s, and that takes some doing. So yes, the whole thing is a bit more fiddly. But built step by step, none of it is hard.

The good news first: if you’re looking for Bing conversion tracking, you almost certainly already have a working setup for Google. Which means you only have to create new tags, hang them on the same triggers, and send the data to Microsoft Advertising instead of Google. That’s what this article does.

1. One UET tag, logic you already know

Terms first, because Microsoft doesn’t make this easy. “Bing Ads” has officially been Microsoft Advertising for years, the platform itself goes by Microsoft Ads — and everyone still searches for Bing. It all means the same thing: advertising on Microsoft’s search network. The naming is a preview of the interface.

The heart of it is UET — Universal Event Tracking. One base tag that sits on every page of your site and sends page views and events to Microsoft Advertising. If that sounds familiar, it should: the GA4 tag and the Google Ads conversion tag (the one with the AW ID) run on exactly the same principle. The UET tag is nothing more than that — a tag with an ID that reacts to your triggers.

The Google-to-Microsoft translation table:

• GA4 base tag or Google tag → UET base tag: sits on all pages, fires on “All Pages” or on your consent trigger.
• Google Ads conversion tag → UET event tag: fires on your conversion action (form submitted, purchase, click-to-call) — on exactly the same trigger.
• Conversion action in Google Ads → conversion goal in Microsoft Advertising: defines which event counts as a conversion, and how it’s counted.

Conceptually that’s all of it. Not one building block is new. Only the names are.

Where it gets sticky is the build itself. Menu items sit in unexpected places, the same function is called something different depending on which view you’re in, and in the German interface the labels flip between German and English mid-screen. It really is a bit more complicated than Google — but “more complicated” here means more clicks to get there, not harder to understand.

Two reasons the effort is worth it anyway:

• Without conversion tracking, Microsoft Advertising shows you clicks and costs and nothing else. Smart bidding has nothing to optimise towards. You’re flying blind, exactly as you would be on Google without tracking.
• The UET tag is also the foundation for remarketing audiences in Microsoft Advertising. No tag, no lists.

If your Google setup isn’t in place yet, or you want to read up on how tags and triggers work in the first place, Google Ads conversion tracking with Google Tag Manager describes the exact foundation we’re reusing here.

2. Build the UET tag and wire it into Google Tag Manager

What you need: a Microsoft Advertising account and a live GTM container on your site. Both there? Four steps.

Step 1: Create the UET tag in Microsoft Advertising

Your first contact with the interface. Look for the conversion tracking area — depending on your account view it lives under the tools menu or straight in the left-hand nav. If you don’t find it immediately, searching the account for “UET” is usually faster than hunting through the menu. Then:

1. Create a UET tag and name it (something like “UET – yourdomain.com”).
2. Microsoft shows you a JavaScript snippet and a tag ID. Ignore the snippet — you’re working in GTM. Copy the tag ID.
3. Skip the question about the installation method. The ID is the only thing that matters.

One UET tag per account is enough in almost every case. You separate individual conversions later, through events and goals, not through multiple tags. So don’t create a separate UET tag for every conversion — that’s one of the most common points of confusion.

Step 2: Load the community template in GTM

Unlike Google Ads, GTM has no built-in tag type for Microsoft Advertising. What it does have is the Community Template Gallery:

1. GTM → Tags → New → open Tag Configuration.
2. Click “Search Community Template Gallery for more tag types”.
3. Search for Microsoft Advertising Universal Event Tracking — Microsoft’s official template — and add it to your workspace.

Take the template, not a Custom HTML tag with the copied snippet. The template gives you fields instead of raw code, versions cleanly, shows its permissions transparently, and makes the event tags in section three much easier.

Step 3: Configure the base tag

Now you build the counterpart to your GA4 base tag:

1. Create a new tag, choose the UET template as the tag type.
2. Enter the tag ID from step one.
3. Event type: Page Load.
4. Trigger: exactly the trigger your GA4 base tag already runs on — “All Pages” or your consent trigger.

A tip on housekeeping: name your tags to a consistent scheme, something like “MS Ads – UET Base” and later “MS Ads – UET Event – Form”. In a container serving Google, Meta and Microsoft at once, you’ll thank yourself in six months.

That’s the entire base build. No black magic — the annoying part waits in the Microsoft Advertising interface, not in GTM.

Step 4: Don’t forget consent

The UET tag is a marketing tag like any other and must not fire before you have marketing consent. Same story here: you already have the logic. Hang the base tag and every later UET event tag on the same consent triggers as your Google and Meta tags. Setting up Consent Mode v2 explains the principle — the trigger mechanics transfer one to one.

3. Create conversion goals and test the setup

The base tag only measures page views. For Microsoft Advertising to know what a conversion is, you need two things: event tags in GTM and conversion goals in the account. This is where your Google setup pays for itself.

Event tags in GTM: new tags, old triggers

Work through your existing Google Ads conversion tags one by one and create a UET counterpart for each:

1. New tag with the UET template, same tag ID as the base tag.
2. Event type: Custom Event.
3. Fill in the event parameters — at minimum the event action (form_submitted, for instance), optionally category, label and a value.
4. Trigger: the same trigger that already fires your Google Ads conversion tag. Don’t rebuild it. Reuse it.

That’s the core of this whole article. If your form trigger has reliably fired the Google Ads tag until now, from today it fires the UET tag as well. Your tested trigger setup starts working for two platforms. And if you run a shop, you pass revenue into the event tag as a value — through the same data layer variable your Google Ads purchase tag already uses.

Create conversion goals in Microsoft Advertising

Back into the interface, into the conversion goals area. Create a new goal — of the goal types on offer, two really matter:

• Event goal: counts when your custom event arrives. The parameters in the goal (action, category, label) have to match exactly what your GTM tag sends. One typo on either side and the goal sits at zero permanently, with no error message.
• Destination URL: counts views of a specific page, your thank-you page for example. It works, but it’s the blunter option. Only use it if there’s no clean event to hook into.

For each goal you also set the count method (every conversion or one per click — for lead gen: one), optionally a conversion value, and the conversion window. When in doubt, mirror your Google Ads settings so the numbers from both platforms stay comparable.

Two things that will predictably irritate you here:

• Menu items and labels differ depending on account view, and English leaks into the German interface. That’s normal and it isn’t your fault. Keep clicking.
• The convenient campaign import from Google Ads into Microsoft Advertising imports your campaigns, not your tracking. The UET tag and the conversion goals are always yours to build.

Test before you celebrate

Three checks, in this order:

1. GTM Preview: do the base tag and event tags fire on the right pages and actions — and only after consent?
2. UET Tag Helper: Microsoft’s own browser extension shows you on the page itself whether the tag loads and which events it sends.
3. Trigger a test conversion, then check the tag status and the goal in Microsoft Advertising. Be patient — the status in the account doesn’t update in real time. Nothing showing after ten minutes is not a reason to tear the setup apart.

If you’re in the tracking anyway: my tracking check (in German) shows you what actually fires on your site, and the conversion tracking health check walks you through your whole setup, Google included.

The bottom line

Bing conversion tracking is Google Ads tracking with different vocabulary and a worse interface. The takeaways:

• The UET tag is Microsoft’s GA4/AW tag: one base tag on all pages, one ID, foundation done.
• Reuse what you have: one UET event tag per Google Ads conversion tag, on the same trigger. Reinvent nothing.
• Use the official community template in GTM, not Custom HTML.
• Event parameters in the tag and in the conversion goal have to match exactly — this is where most “the goal counts nothing” cases come from.
• Consent triggers apply to UET the same as to Google and Meta.
• The interface is more confusing than Google’s. The process behind it is the same. Don’t let it stop you.