How to import Bing Ads Cost Data into Google Analytics 4

If you run Bing Ads (or Facebook Ads) and use Google Analytics 4 as your primary analytics solution, you can import Bing Ads cost data into GA4 and have all your data in one program. 

There are two ways to do it: loading CSV files manually regularly or setting up SFTP integration and loading Bing Ads data automatically. 

Two of them require you to prepare Bing Ads data in the correct format, and even if you finally decide to go with SFTP, I still recommend you first load the data in CSV to check if GA4 can match it with user behaviour data well. 

Apart from that you should do a few other preparations. Let’s talk about all of them in detail. 

Organise your Bing ads data to import it in GA4

As mentioned earlier, you should prepare your data and ads before importing Bing cost data into Google Analytics 4. The main one is to add UTM parameters to Bing Ads.

Google Analytics 4 requires you to include the following variables in UTM parameters. If you don’t have any of them, Google Analytics 4 won’t be able to merge the data. 

Therefore, I recommend you use Google UTM Builder, or you can use the same structure as my URL below:

?utm_source=bing&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=*Competition+%7C+BMM+%7C+USA&utm_id=%5B386327554%5D

Unfortunately, Bing doesn’t allow using dynamic variables for campaign ID. Therefore, I don’t mention it here as the solution. GA4 won’t be able to merge two datasets without a Campaign ID. Therefore, you should manually add all UTM parameters for Bing ads.  

Once you make all the changes above, you should wait a few days so that Google Analytics 4 can collect new data. After that, you can move to the next step.

How to import Bing Ads Data into Google Analytics 4

So GA4 collected the fresh new data, and it’s time to a) export Bing ads cost data from the Microsoft Ads platform and b) import it into Google Analytics 4. Let’s start with the first step. 

How to export Bing Ads cost data

To export cost data, you should use Microsoft Ads Manager.

1. In Ads Manager, click “Reports” icon.
2. Click on the “Create Report” button and include the following dimensions and metrics:
   1. Campaign ID
   2. Campaign Name
   3. Date
   4. Impressions
   5. Clicks
   6. Spend
3. Save the report and Export it as zip(.csv)

How to import Bing Ads cost data into GA4

So, now we have ad cost data in a CSV file, and you need to organise it before uploading it into GA4. You can use Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets for this. I will use Google Sheets. 

Upload the CSV file you downloaded from Microsoft Ads Manager to Google Sheets and organise it according to the structure presented in the screenshot below. You can also download my template.

Remember a few things:

1. You should add medium column with values “cpc”
2. You should add source column with values “bing”

After you provide the necessary changes, save the file and download it as CSV. Now is the time to import it into Google Analytics 4. 

1. Open GA4 and go to Admin and click on “Data Import”
2. Create a new data source and select the following settings:
   1. Data source name – “bing_cost_data”
   2. Data type – cost data
   3. Import source – Manual CSV upload
3. Click on button “Upload CSV” and select CSV file you prepared early and click “Next”
4. Map CSV file columns with GA4 parameters
5. Click on “Import” to upload your Bing Ads cost data into GA4

It’s up to you to decide how frequently you want to upload CSV files in GA4; you can do it daily, weekly or monthly. If you want to update it daily or even more frequently, I recommend you look at SFTP data import in Google Analytics. You can also contact me if you need extra help with it. 

Where to find imported Bing Ads Data in GA4?

After you import Bings Ads data into Google Analytics 4 successfully, you need to know where to find it. It can also help you to troubleshoot if the data was imported correctly. 

So, there are two GA4 reports where you can find Bing ads cost data:

• Reports – Acquisition – “Non Google cost” report
• Google Analytics 4 Explore 

It’s worth mentioning that “Non-Google cost” report appears in the Acquisition collection only after you make the first import. If you prefer Google Analytics 4 Explore, you should import the following dimensions to build the tabular report: 

• Session campaign ID
• Session campaign name
• Session source/medium
• Non-Google impressions
• Non-Google clicks
• Non-Google costs
• Non-Google cost per click
• Non-Google cost per conversion

In terms of metrics, you can import revenue, total users, new users and many others. 

The beauty of GA4 Explore is that it allows you to use different visualisation methods and analyse your data at a deeper level. However, it’s worth mentioning that you can’t break down your data at the user view level because you merge Bing and GA4 data at the campaign level. 

Why does GA4 not show imported Bing Ads data?

Sometimes you can encounter that Google Analytics 4 doesn’t upload your data or it’s not showing it in the reports mentioned above. Over some time working with Google Analytica 4, I collected the most common scenarios:

1. Check the CSV file with Bing Ads cost data and see if you used the same campaign id, campaign name, source and medium parameters that you use in Bing Ads. If one of them is missed or doesn’t match, it’s the issue.
2. Google Analytics 4 won’t upload the file if it has “null” values. Therefore, always use “0” instead. For instance, if your campaign didn’t generate any clicks, impressions or costs, anyway write 0 instead of leaving it empty.

Conclusions

Bing ads cost data can be imported in Google Analytics 4 manually using a CSV file or automatically using SFTP. The latest one requires some engineering resources to set it up. You can also ask me to help you with it. 

This article covered every step of how to import your data using CSV that, includes the following steps:

If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment below. 

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