Universal Event Tracking (UET) is a useful way to track what happens after someone has clicked on your ad. Here, find some common user questions, tips, and best practices when getting started with UET:
Universal Event Tracking (UET) is a mechanism for advertisers to report user activity on their websites to Microsoft Advertising by installing one site-wide tag. UET is a prerequisite for advertisers to track conversions and/or do remarketing. Once the UET tag is installed by the advertiser across their website, the tag reports user activity on the advertiser website to Microsoft Advertising. Advertisers can then create conversion goals to specify which subset of user actions on the website qualify to be counted as conversions. If Microsoft Advertising finds a match between a conversion goal and the user activity logged by the UET tag installed on their website, it counts a conversion. Similarly, advertisers can create remarketing lists based on user activity on website and Microsoft Advertising matches the list definitions with UET logged user activity to put users into those lists.
UET will work with all industry ready tag management systems. Here is the current list of (and links to instructions for) tested and supported tag managers:
UET is designed to work with all major website platforms. Here is the current list of (and links to instructions for) tested and supported platforms that allow you to install UET tags:
See this troubleshooter to find out how to validate if your UET tag is set up properly.
We recommend doing so to take advantage of the new syntax's benefits. Learn more about the new syntax.
See Reasons for creating more than one UET tag to find if you should create more than one UET tag.
Yes, the tags are SSL compliant. The way it works is that it reads the protocol of whatever page it's placed on (http or https) and matches the protocol.
UET collects the following data and Microsoft Advertising retains it for 390 days. UET will also collect the IP address and the Microsoft cookie (with an expiration date of 13 months). This cookie contains a GUID assigned to the user’s browser, and/or an ID assigned to a user as long as it authenticated through their Microsoft account. In general, the cookie in the relevant domain and IP address are always passed with every http request and not just via UET. Microsoft Advertising doesn't resell this data to third parties or share it with other advertisers.
Parameter | Value Passed | Purpose |
---|---|---|
ea | Event action (custom value passed by advertiser) | |
ec | Event category (custom value passed by advertiser) | These are needed if advertiser chooses to use custom events for conversion tracking or remarketing. |
el | Event label (custom value passed by advertiser) | |
ev | Event value (custom value passed by advertiser) | |
evt | Event type (page load or custom) | Distinguishes page load event from custom events. |
gc | Variable revenue currency (custom value passed by advertiser) | Needed if advertiser chooses to track variable revenue. |
gv | Variable revenue (custom value passed by advertiser) | Needed if advertiser chooses to track variable revenue. |
ifm | 1 | A value of 1 indicates that the tag is being fired from within an iFrame. |
kw | Keyword | |
lg | Browser language setting | |
lt | Page load time | |
mid | GUID generated by UET tag | Used to relate page load and any custom events passed with each other. |
msclkid | Ad select information, generated at ad select time and appended to the landing page URL when auto-tagging of Microsoft Click ID is enabled. Format: GUID followed by extra byte indicating whether the current value is a new one (unique to that session), as in "cdd4afcccb1c9a4cad9544dd7e5006d5-1". Note:
Cookie name: _uetmsclkid Cookie expiration date: 90 days |
Microsoft Click ID, which is used to improve the accuracy of conversion tracking. Note: UET sets a first-party cookie on your site’s domain for this parameter. |
p | URL of the page | Identifies webpage. |
pi | Digital signature - one way hash of tl, lt, lg, sc, sh, sw. | |
r | Referrer URL | Identifies referrer URL. |
rn | Random number | Handles browser cache. |
sc | Screen color depth | |
sh | Screen height | |
sid | Session ID | |
sv | Subversion | Identifies the version of UET. |
sw | Screen width | |
ti | UET tag ID | Identifies tag. |
tl | Page title | Used to construct digital signature so that we can detect fraud. |
uid | User ID | A unique, non-personally identifiable ID representing a signed-in user. Advertisers may choose to store the user ID in a first-party cookie named "_uetuid". It'll be automatically read when UET events fire. |
ver | Version | Identifies the version of UET. |
vid | Visitor ID | A unique, anonymized visitor ID, assigned by UET, representing a unique visitor. UET stores this data in a first-party cookie named "_uetvid". |
Data point | Purpose |
---|---|
Interactions: clicks, scroll | Helps us detect fraud activity to optimize advertiser spend |
Number of visits per page | Helps advertisers optimize their websites for greater engagement and conversions |
Page performance (speed, load time) | Helps us detect fraud activity to optimize advertiser spend |
Purchase cart extraction (product name, price, number of products) | Helps us improve audience targeting for advertisers |
Cart abandonment extraction | Helps us improve audience targeting for advertisers |
Traffic: user and session breakdown by country, device | Helps advertisers optimize their websites for greater engagement and conversions |
Browser-based signal | Helps us detect fraud activity to optimize advertiser spend |
Quick backs | Helps advertisers optimize their websites for greater engagement and conversions |
JavaScript errors in browser | Helps us detect drops in conversions |
Time spent | Helps advertisers optimize their websites for greater engagement and conversions |
If you do not want the UET tag to set any first-party cookies, you can opt-out by including the following parameter in your UET tracking code: storeConvTrackCookies:false
Example:
Here is what this opt-out code looks like within your UET tracking code:
<script>(function(w,d,t,r,u){var f,n,i;w[u]=w[u]||[],f=function(){var o={ti:"TAG_ID_HERE", storeConvTrackCookies:false};o.q=w[u],w[u]=new UET(o),w[u].push("pageLoad")},n=d.createElement(t),n.src=r,n.async=1,n.onload=n.onreadystatechange=function(){var s=this.readyState;s&&s!=="loaded"&&s!=="complete"||(f(),n.onload=n.onreadystatechange=null)},i=d.getElementsByTagName(t)[0],i.parentNode.insertBefore(n,i)})(window,document,"script","//bat.bing.com/bat.js","uetq");</script>
For additional details about Microsoft privacy policies for usage of data, please refer to Microsoft Privacy Statement. Also note that we will not be reselling the data we collect via UET to third parties and/or share it with other advertisers using Microsoft Advertising.
The following table lists the cookies that UET stores or accesses in your browser. Microsoft Advertising doesn't resell this data to third parties or share it with other advertisers.
Cookie ID | Cookie Description |
---|---|
MR | This is a Microsoft cookie that contains a binary flag. It gets set when you interact with a Microsoft property, including a UET beacon call or a visit to a Microsoft property through the browser. |
MSPTC | UET assigns this unique, pseudoanonymized visitor ID, representing a unique visitor. It's a partition cookie. This cookie is used in the browsers' Privacy API. |
MUID | This is a Microsoft cookie that contains a GUID assigned to your browser. It gets set when you interact with a Microsoft property, including a UET beacon call or a visit to a Microsoft property through the browser. |
_uetmsclkid | This is the Microsoft Click ID, which is used to improve the accuracy of conversion tracking.
Note: UET sets a first-party cookie on your site’s domain for this parameter. When auto-tagging of the Microsoft Click ID is enabled, the ad click information is generated at ad click time and appended to the landing page URL. |
_uetsid | This contains the session ID for a unique session on the site. Note: As of as of July 2023, _uetsid has been updated with additional parameters as follows: insights_sessionId, timestamp, pagenumber, upgrade, upload. |
_uetvid | UET assigns this unique, pseudoanonymized visitor ID, representing a unique visitor. UET stores this data in a first-party cookie. Note: As of as of July 2023, _uetvid has been updated with additional parameters as follows: insights_userId, cookieVersion, expiryTime, consent, cookie_creation_time. |
If your website enforces the https protocol for all pages, you can modify your UET tag to mark first-party cookies as secure. Just add the highlighted code to the base UET tag on each page of your website:
<script>(function(w,d,t,r,u){var f,n,i;w[u]=w[u]||[],f=function(){var o={ti:"TAG_ID_HERE", cookieFlags: "SameSite=None;Secure"};o.q=w[u],w[u]=new UET(o),w[u].push("pageLoad")},n=d.createElement(t),n.src=r,n.async=1,n.onload=n.onreadystatechange=function(){var s=this.readyState;s&&s!=="loaded"&&s!=="complete"||(f(),n.onload=n.onreadystatechange=null)},i=d.getElementsByTagName(t)[0],i.parentNode.insertBefore(n,i)})(window,document,"script","//bat.bing.com/bat.js","uetq");</script>
This change will break UET functionality if any part of your site is not using the https protocol.
Set the cookie named "_uetmsdns" with a value of 1. Advertisers are responsible for setting this cookie, and it must be set in a first-party context (for example, in the advertiser's domain, such as contoso.com). This cookie is read by the client-side UET JavaScript during runtime, and if the value is set to 1, no UET events will fire.
Yes, it leverages browser caching with an expiration time of 30 minutes.
This is a temporary warning, and clearing your browser's cookies should resolve it. It has no impact on your website or conversion tracking functionality for your website.
Yes, you can create new and share existing UET tags across accounts to simplify the management of conversion tracking and audiences.
No, UET tags aren't currently shareable across manager accounts.
If you get the above error, try either refreshing the page or clearing your browser cache. If you still encounter problems, contact support for further assistance.