Microsoft ads brings consent management to Universal Event Tracking

If you’re using Microsoft Ads, you have probably received an email from Microsoft over the past few months about Universal Event Tracking (UET) consent enforcement. In the email Microsoft outlines updates to the UET tag that help preserve measurement capabilities while improving privacy for your website visitors. It’s important you act now to update your UET implementation to get these advantages.

What is UET and what are its issues?

Universal Event Tracking is Microsoft’s solution for building audiences and measuring campaign performance, including conversion goals. It is typically implemented on your website via a UET tag and additional event tags. These can be deployed directly onto the site through your CMS or added through a tag management platform like Google Tag Manager or Adobe Launch.

The UET tag uses cookies which your website visitors should have the option to decline. Previously the UET tag was implemented on a binary basis: if the visitor declined cookies, then you could not fire the tag at all. If they consented to cookies, then the tag fired and sent data to Microsoft.

This in/out method may seem straightforward, but it has real downsides. There is the obvious issue of campaign data loss for the users who have not consented to cookies. Equally concerning is the possibility of inadequate implementations causing the UET tag to fire even when users have not consented to cookies.

Why is Microsoft making changes to the UET tag?

To combat the issues, Microsoft has updated the UET tag to pass consent signals through designated URL parameters. If the user consents to cookies, then UET will function as it always has. If the user declines cookies, the tag can still fire and send some limited data to Microsoft, but it will not read or write any cookies apart from those used to detect fraud and spam. Microsoft can then use the UET signals it receives to model conversions for opted-out users probabilistically, rather than requiring the deterministic signals provided by cookies.

This change effectively brings Microsoft in-line with Google’s Consent Mode model, which works in a similar way. By allowing some limited signals from opted-out users, Microsoft Ads can retain conversion measurement capabilities while remaining focused on privacy. 

What do advertisers need to do?

 To take advantage of this change, Microsoft Ads users need to implement two new code snippets; one which sets the default consent state for Microsoft Ads, and one which updates the Microsoft Ads consent state when your website visitors provide or decline consent. Microsoft has made it clear that failing to do this could severely impact monetization and conversion tracking, so it’s important to get on top of these updates as soon as possible.

If you’re an advertiser using UET for your Microsoft Ads campaigns but you’re not sure where to start with these changes, feel free to get in touch to find out how we can help.