How do I track Google Ads conversions from Microsoft Bookings?

Option 1: a click-based conversion (quick, but it counts intent)#

Create a Google Ads conversion action for clicks on your "Book now" button or link. You can set it up with Google Tag Manager or the Google tag on your own site. It takes minutes and gives Google Ads a signal right away.

The drawback is that it counts people who start booking, not people who finish. If it's your primary conversion action, Smart Bidding optimises toward clickers. Mark it as secondary and use it for reporting while you set up Option 2.

Option 2: import real bookings using gclid#

This counts appointments that exist in Bookings. The pattern:

1. Capture gclid on your landing page. With Google Ads auto-tagging on, the ad click arrives with ?gclid=.... Save it in first-party storage together with the time of the click.
2. Carry a key into Bookings. RefID values can only contain letters, numbers, underscores and hyphens, and Microsoft doesn't document a length limit. So store the gclid on your side under a short key and link to Bookings with ?RefID= plus that key (for example ?RefID=k7f2a9).
3. Catch the new booking. A Power Automate flow on the Bookings connector trigger When a appointment is Created receives the booking, including its TrackingData field.
4. Match and import. Look up the gclid for that key and upload a conversion to Google Ads with the gclid, your conversion action name and the booking time. You can use offline conversion import (file or scheduled upload) or the Google Ads API.

Limits to know before building it:

• The Bookings connector is in Preview. Only Bookings admins can create flows with its triggers, and Microsoft allows 5 flows per Bookings mailbox.
• Users have reported RefID links returning Bad Request and blank tracking data. It may not work on your page, so test it first. See RefID tracking not working.
• Test every tagged link you use. See UTM parameters breaking Bookings links.

The Google Ads conversion tracking guide walks through the conversion action settings, the flow and the upload format.

What not to rely on#

• Tagging Microsoft's confirmation screen. It's on Microsoft's domain, so you can't add tags to it.
• Detecting the booking inside an embedded iframe. Your page's tags can't see into a cross-origin frame. See GTM and the Bookings iframe.
• Counting confirmation emails. They don't carry the gclid, and they aren't a browser event Google can attribute.

A reasonable setup#

Most advertisers run both options. The click conversion stays as a secondary action for fast feedback, and the imported booking conversion becomes the primary action once it has a few weeks of data. If you can't get RefID working, you can still judge performance by comparing booking counts from the Bookings export against campaign dates, but that isn't attribution.

Doing this with BookingsXP#

With the BookingsXP widget on your page, the booking is completed in front of your Google tag. The widget fires your Google Ads conversion on booking_completed, with transaction_id set to the booking ID to prevent duplicates. Optional enhanced conversions hash the booker's email with SHA-256 in the browser. It also stores the gclid in the booking notes, so each appointment in Bookings and Outlook shows which ad it came from. See analytics. BookingsXP is independent and not affiliated with or endorsed by Microsoft.