Microsoft Bing Ads cost 20-35% less per click than Google Ads for equivalent keywords, yet most WooCommerce stores don’t even have conversion tracking set up. That’s leaving money on the table in an advertising channel your competitors probably ignore.
Bing controls approximately 9% of global search market share (Statista, 2025)—smaller than Google, but still representing billions of monthly searches. More importantly, Bing’s demographic skews older and higher-income, particularly on desktop. For many WooCommerce verticals, that’s exactly the audience with purchasing power.
Here’s how to set up Microsoft UET tracking for your WooCommerce store, including server-side options that bypass the ad blockers affecting 31.5% of your visitors.
Why WooCommerce Stores Ignore Bing Ads
When store owners think “paid search,” they think Google. It’s the default. And when tracking tutorials cover multi-platform attribution, Facebook usually comes second, followed by TikTok or Pinterest. Bing gets mentioned as an afterthought—if at all.
This creates a self-reinforcing problem: stores don’t run Bing campaigns because they don’t have tracking set up. They don’t set up tracking because they’re not running campaigns. Meanwhile, competitors who do bother with Bing enjoy lower acquisition costs in a less crowded auction.
The practical reality: Bing Ads typically have 20-35% lower CPCs than Google Ads for equivalent keywords. For a store spending $10,000/month on Google, that’s potentially $2,000-$3,500 in savings—or the same traffic at lower cost.
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What Is UET (Universal Event Tracking)?
UET is Microsoft’s tracking tag—their equivalent to Google’s gtag or Facebook’s Pixel. Install it on your site, and Microsoft can track page views, conversions, and custom events to optimize your ad campaigns.
Definition: The Universal Event Tracking (UET) tag is a JavaScript snippet that captures visitor behavior on your website and sends it to Microsoft Advertising for campaign optimization and conversion attribution.
For WooCommerce stores, the critical events to track are:
- Purchase: Order completion with transaction value and order ID
- Add to Cart: Product additions for remarketing audiences
- Begin Checkout: Cart abandonment tracking
- Page View: General site activity for audience building
Without these events flowing to Microsoft Advertising, you’re running Bing campaigns blind—spending money without the data needed for optimization.
Three Ways to Set Up Bing Tracking for WooCommerce
Option 1: Manual UET Tag Installation
The simplest approach: copy your UET tag from Microsoft Advertising and paste it into your WordPress header. Every page loads the tag, and Microsoft tracks basic page views automatically.
The limitation: manual installation tracks page views, not WooCommerce-specific events. You’d need to add custom JavaScript for purchase tracking, and that requires development work most store owners want to avoid.
Option 2: WordPress Tracking Plugins
Plugins like PixelYourSite, Pixel Manager, and Conversios include Bing/Microsoft Advertising support alongside their Google and Facebook tracking features. These plugins automatically fire WooCommerce events—purchases, add-to-carts, checkouts—to your connected platforms.
Setup typically involves entering your UET tag ID in the plugin settings. The plugin handles event formatting and JavaScript injection across your store pages.
The catch: Plugin-based tracking runs in browsers, meaning the 31.5% of users with ad blockers (Statista, 2024) will never trigger your UET events. Your conversion data will systematically undercount actual purchases.
Option 3: Server-Side UET Tracking
Server-side tracking captures events on your server before they reach browsers, then sends them directly to Microsoft’s API. This bypasses ad blockers entirely because there’s no browser-side JavaScript to block.
Microsoft Advertising now supports this approach through their Conversion API, similar to how Facebook CAPI or Google’s Measurement Protocol work. Events flow server-to-server, giving you complete conversion data regardless of visitor browser configurations.
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Microsoft Enhanced Conversions: The New Standard
Like Google Ads, Microsoft Advertising now supports enhanced conversions—adding hashed first-party data (email, phone, address) to conversion events to improve attribution when cookies fail.
Microsoft Advertising now supports enhanced conversions similar to Google Ads for improved attribution accuracy. This matters because third-party cookie deprecation affects Bing tracking just like it affects every other platform.
Enhanced conversions work by matching your customer data against Microsoft’s user graph. When someone purchases using an email address Microsoft recognizes, they can attribute that conversion even without cookie-based tracking.
For WooCommerce stores, this means collecting customer data at checkout and passing it (properly hashed) to Microsoft alongside your conversion events.
The Bing Audience Advantage
Bing’s user base differs from Google’s in ways that benefit certain WooCommerce verticals:
Desktop-heavy: Bing users over-index on desktop compared to mobile. If your products require detailed consideration (B2B, high-ticket items, complex configurations), Bing traffic may convert better than mobile-dominated Google traffic.
Older demographic: Bing’s audience skews older, which often means higher household income and established purchasing patterns. Stores selling to 35+ demographics may find more qualified traffic on Bing.
Less competition: Fewer advertisers means lower CPCs for equivalent keywords. The same search intent that costs $5/click on Google might cost $3-4 on Bing.
None of these advantages matter if you can’t track conversions. Your Bing campaigns will struggle to optimize without purchase data flowing back to Microsoft Advertising.
Setting Up Server-Side Bing Tracking
For WooCommerce stores serious about complete conversion data across all platforms, server-side tracking solves the ad blocker problem for Bing just like it does for Google and Facebook.
Transmute Engine™ takes this approach: a dedicated Node.js server runs on your subdomain (like data.yourstore.com), receiving events via API from a lightweight WordPress plugin. The Transmute Engine server handles formatting, PII hashing, and delivery to Microsoft Advertising, GA4, Facebook CAPI, and BigQuery simultaneously—from a single data stream.
This architecture means adding Bing tracking doesn’t require a separate plugin or additional configuration. Your conversion events already flow through your server; Microsoft Advertising becomes another destination alongside your existing platforms.
Is Bing Worth the Setup Effort?
The honest assessment depends on your vertical and audience:
Strong fit for Bing: B2B products, professional services, high-ticket consumer goods, financial products, travel, home improvement. These verticals align with Bing’s older, higher-income, desktop-heavy audience.
Weaker fit: Youth-focused brands, mobile-first products, trend-driven fashion. Google and social platforms likely deliver better results for these audiences.
The practical test: allocate 10-20% of your Google Ads budget to Bing for 60 days with proper tracking in place. Compare ROAS directly. If Bing outperforms (and it often does for appropriate verticals), scale accordingly.
But you can’t run that test without conversion tracking. And you’re leaving data on the table if you only track through browser-side JavaScript that ad blockers defeat.
Key Takeaways
- Bing Ads offer 20-35% lower CPCs than Google for equivalent keywords—real savings for cost-conscious stores
- Microsoft’s 9% search market share represents billions of monthly searches from an older, higher-income demographic
- UET (Universal Event Tracking) is Microsoft’s conversion tag, similar to Google’s gtag or Facebook Pixel
- Plugin-based tracking misses 31.5% of conversions from users running ad blockers
- Server-side tracking bypasses ad blockers by sending events directly to Microsoft’s API
- Enhanced conversions now available for Bing, similar to Google Ads enhanced conversions
Yes, especially for stores in verticals where Bing’s demographic (older, higher income, desktop-heavy) aligns with target customers. The 20-35% lower CPCs mean your ad budget stretches further than on Google. Start with a small test budget to compare ROAS before scaling.
You have three main options: install the UET tag manually through Microsoft Advertising’s tag manager, use a WordPress plugin like PixelYourSite or Pixel Manager that supports Bing integration, or implement server-side tracking that sends events directly to Microsoft’s Conversion API without browser-side JavaScript.
Yes. Microsoft Advertising supports server-side conversion tracking through their Conversion API. This sends purchase events from your server directly to Microsoft, bypassing ad blockers that would prevent browser-based UET tags from firing.
UET (Universal Event Tracking) is Microsoft’s base conversion tracking—similar to Google’s gtag. Enhanced Conversions add first-party customer data (hashed email, phone) to improve attribution accuracy when cookies fail. Microsoft now supports enhanced conversions similar to what Google Ads offers.
Ready to capture the conversions your browser-based tracking misses? Learn how server-side tracking works at Seresa.io.
