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Microsoft Advertising sets a 2 September date to fix UTM reporting in GA4
Microsoft has emailed advertisers confirming that Microsoft Advertising will update UTM auto-tagging from 2 September 2026, first spotted by Anthony Higman and detailed by Arpan Banerjee. From that date, format-specific UTM tags are applied automatically so that Search, Audience, Shopping, and Performance Max campaigns report distinctly by campaign type in GA4 and other analytics platforms, replacing the universal tagging that previously lumped them together as Paid Search.
What changed
Search continues to map cleanly to Paid Search, Shopping gains its own lane via a campaign suffix, video traffic is broken out, and the cross-network suffix lets GA4 classify Performance and Max correctly. Microsoft says no action is required for accounts already on UTM auto-tagging; the change applies automatically and appears in reporting for activity from 2 September.
Why it matters for advertisers
For you, this means measurement teams should expect Bing channel definitions in GA4 to fragment from one bucket into several, starting in September. Worth updating any dashboards, channel groupings, or attribution models that currently assume all Microsoft traffic lands under a single Paid Search channel.
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Original newsletter text and archive evidence
Microsoft Advertising sets a 2 September date to fix UTM reporting in GA4
Microsoft has emailed advertisers confirming that Microsoft Advertising will update UTM auto-tagging from 2 September 2026, first spotted by Anthony Higman and detailed by Arpan Banerjee. From that date, format-specific UTM tags are applied automatically so that Search, Audience, Shopping, and Performance Max campaigns report distinctly by campaign type in GA4 and other analytics platforms, replacing the universal tagging that previously lumped them together as Paid Search.
Search continues to map cleanly to Paid Search, Shopping gains its own lane via a campaign suffix, video traffic is broken out, and the cross-network suffix lets GA4 classify Performance and Max correctly. Microsoft says no action is required for accounts already on UTM auto-tagging; the change applies automatically and appears in reporting for activity from 2 September.
For you, this means measurement teams should expect Bing channel definitions in GA4 to fragment from one bucket into several, starting in September. Worth updating any dashboards, channel groupings, or attribution models that currently assume all Microsoft traffic lands under a single Paid Search channel.
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