Get Started With the Bing Ads API

12/3/2018
9 minutes to read
Contributors

Any Bing Ads user with a developer token can begin using the Bing Ads API. For advertisers placing a large number of ads or developers building advertising tools, the Bing Ads API provides a programmatic interface to Bing Ads. You can write your Bing Ads application in any language that supports web services. To get started with a specific SDK, see Get Started in C# | Java | PHP | Python.

Quick Start

If you just want to get something working right away, follow these steps to get your Bing Ads user information. You can follow the links for details and customization options.

Each Bing Ads user must grant consent for your application to access their accounts. In this quick start, effectively you will need to grant your own application permission to access your own Bing Ads account via the following Get-Tokens.ps1 PowerShell script. Open Notepad or your favorite editor and copy the PowerShell script to the editor. Set $clientId to the Application Id of your registered app.

$clientId = "YourApplicationIdGoesHere"

Start-Process "https://login.live.com/oauth20_authorize.srf?client_id=$clientId&scope=bingads.manage&response_type=code&redirect_uri=https://login.live.com/oauth20_desktop.srf"

$code = Read-Host "Grant consent in the browser, and then enter the code here (see ?code=UseThisCode&...)"

$response = Invoke-WebRequest https://login.live.com/oauth20_token.srf -ContentType application/x-www-form-urlencoded -Method POST -Body "client_id=$clientId&scope=bingads.manage&code=$code&grant_type=authorization_code&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Flogin.live.com%2Foauth20_desktop.srf"

$oauthTokens = ($response.Content | ConvertFrom-Json)  
Write-Output "Access token: " $oauthTokens.access_token  
Write-Output "Access token expires in: " $oauthTokens.expires_in  
Write-Output "Refresh token: " $oauthTokens.refresh_token 

# The access token will expire e.g., after one hour. 
# Use the refresh token to get a new access token. 

$response = Invoke-WebRequest https://login.live.com/oauth20_token.srf -ContentType application/x-www-form-urlencoded -Method POST -Body "client_id=$clientId&scope=bingads.manage&code=$code&grant_type=refresh_token&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Flogin.live.com%2Foauth20_desktop.srf&refresh_token=$($oauthTokens.refresh_token)"

$oauthTokens = ($response.Content | ConvertFrom-Json)  
Write-Output "Access token: " $oauthTokens.access_token  
Write-Output "Access token expires in: " $oauthTokens.expires_in  
Write-Output "Refresh token: " $oauthTokens.refresh_token

Save the file and name it Get-Tokens.ps1 (you can name it anything you want but the extension must be .ps1).

To programatically manage a Bing Ads account, you must provide consent at least once through the web application consent flow. Thereafter you can use the latest refresh token to request new access and refresh tokens without any further user interaction. For more details see authorization code grant flow.

Now to run Get-Tokens.ps1 open a console window. At the command prompt, navigate to the folder where you saved Get-Tokens.ps1 and enter the following command:
```
powershell.exe -File .\Get-Tokens.ps1
```
When the PowerShell script successfully runs, it starts a browser session where you enter your Bing Ads credentials. After consenting, the browser's address bar contains the grant code (see ?code=UseThisCode&...).
```
https://login.live.com/oauth20_desktop.srf?code=M7ab570e5-a1c0-32e5-a946-e490c82954&lc=1033
```
Copy the grant code (your own code, not M7ab570e5-a1c0-32e5-a946-e490c82954) and enter it in the console window at the prompt. The PowerShell script then returns the access and refresh tokens. You should treat the refresh token like you would a password; if someone gets hold of it, they have access to your resources. The refresh token is long lived but it can become invalid. If you ever receive an invalid_grant error, your refresh token is no longer valid and you'll need to run the Get-Tokens.ps1 PowerShell script again to get consent and a new refresh token.

Create a new file and paste into it the following script. Set the accessToken to the value you received from Get-Tokens.ps1 and set $developerToken to the developer token you received from Step 1 above.

$accessToken = "AccessTokenGoesHere";
$developerToken = "DeveloperTokenGoesHere";

[xml]$getUserRequest = 
'<soapenv:Envelope xmlns:soapenv="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/" xmlns:v12="https://bingads.microsoft.com/Customer/v12">
<soapenv:Header>
   <v12:DeveloperToken>{0}</v12:DeveloperToken>
   <v12:AuthenticationToken>{1}</v12:AuthenticationToken>
</soapenv:Header>
<soapenv:Body>
   <v12:GetUserRequest>
      <v12:UserId xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:nil="true"/>
   </v12:GetUserRequest>
</soapenv:Body>
</soapenv:Envelope>' -f $developerToken, $accessToken

$headers = @{"SOAPAction" = "GetUser"}

$uri = "https://clientcenter.api.bingads.microsoft.com/Api/CustomerManagement/v12/CustomerManagementService.svc"
$response = Invoke-WebRequest $uri -Method post -ContentType 'text/xml' -Body $getUserRequest -Headers $headers
Write-Output $response.Content

Save the file and name it Get-User.ps1 (you can name it anything you want but the extension must be .ps1).

Now to run Get-User.ps1 open a console window. At the command prompt, navigate to the folder where you saved Get-User.ps1 and enter the following command:
```
powershell.exe -File .\Get-User.ps1
```
When the PowerShell script successfully runs it should print out the details of your Bing Ads user, including customer roles. For details see GetUser.

What's next? First, congratulations on making your first call to Bing Ads API! Here are a few concepts and ideas to explore further:

The GetUser operation above returned the Bing Ads user ID and a list of user roles per customer ID. With the user ID, you can now call SearchAccounts to get a list accounts the user can access i.e., via the UserId predicate.
If you use .NET, Java, PHP, or Python, you'll want to try the Bing Ads SDKs. Some of the low level authorization details are abstracted, for example the request header elements are automatically set. For more details, see Authentication With the SDKs.
You can register an application with any Microsoft account; you don't need to use a Bing Ads user for the application registration.
If your application will be used by multiple Bing Ads users, be sure to request a universal developer token.
The Application Id (a.k.a. client_id) identifies your application for each Bing Ads user who grants consent; The Developer Token identifies your application for Bing Ads services. You could use multiple application IDs with the same developer token, or vice versa depending on your business requirements.

Get a Developer Token

To use Bing Ads APIs, you must have a developer token and valid user credentials.

If you do not yet have a Bing Ads account, you can sign up via the Bing Ads web application.
To get a developer token for production, you must login at the Bing Ads Developer Portal as a Microsoft Account user with the Super Admin role. Then click on the Request Token button. The Super Admin may request API access for any user within their customer scope.

Note

The sandbox and production environments use separate credentials. You can sign up for a Sandbox account here. Everyone can use the universal sandbox developer token i.e., BBD37VB98.

There are two types of Bing Ads developer tokens.

Single-user developer token can be used to authenticate solely with one designated user. For example if you are a direct advertiser with one log in email address, then you will only need a single-user token.
Universal developer token can be used to authenticate with any valid user credentials. For example if you are developing an application that will be used by multiple Bing Ads users, then you will likely want to request a universal token instead of getting a single-user token for each user.

Regardless of the type, a developer token enables programmatic access to the accounts permitted for a user. Obtaining a developer token for API access does not grant additional permissions to any Bing Ads accounts. Each Bing Ads user is assigned a role e.g., Super Admin or Advertiser Campaign Manager for every customer they can access. With a developer token the same accounts available in the Bing Ads web application are available to the user programmatically through the API.

Where to Use the API Credentials

When you call a service operation such as GetCampaignsByAccountId, you must specify request header elements such as DeveloperToken, CustomerId, and CustomerAccountId.

<s:Envelope xmlns:i="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:s="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/">
  <s:Header xmlns="https://bingads.microsoft.com/CampaignManagement/v12">
    <Action mustUnderstand="1">GetCampaignsByAccountId</Action>
    <ApplicationToken i:nil="false">ValueHere</ApplicationToken>
    <AuthenticationToken i:nil="false">ValueHere</AuthenticationToken>
    <CustomerAccountId i:nil="false">ValueHere</CustomerAccountId>
    <CustomerId i:nil="false">ValueHere</CustomerId>
    <DeveloperToken i:nil="false">ValueHere</DeveloperToken>
  </s:Header>
  <s:Body>
    <GetCampaignsByAccountIdRequest xmlns="https://bingads.microsoft.com/CampaignManagement/v12">
      <AccountId>ValueHere</AccountId>
      <CampaignType>ValueHere</CampaignType>
    </GetCampaignsByAccountIdRequest>
  </s:Body>
</s:Envelope>

If you are using one of the Bing Ads SDKs, the request header elements are set using AuthorizationData. For more details about the SDK authentication library see Authentication With the SDKs.

var authorizationData = new AuthorizationData
{
    Authentication = <AuthenticationGoesHere>, 
    CustomerId = <CustomerIdGoesHere>,
    AccountId = <AccountIdGoesHere>,
    DeveloperToken = "<DeveloperTokenGoesHere>"
};

static AuthorizationData authorizationData = new AuthorizationData();
authorizationData.setAuthentication(<AuthenticationGoesHere>);
authorizationData.setCustomerId("<CustomerIdGoesHere>");
authorizationData.setAccountId("<AccountIdGoesHere>");
authorizationData.setDeveloperToken("<DeveloperTokenGoesHere>");

$authorizationData = (new AuthorizationData())
    ->withAuthentication($AuthenticationGoesHere)
    ->withCustomerId($CustomerIdGoesHere)
    ->withAccountId($AccountIdGoesHere)
    ->withDeveloperToken($DeveloperTokenGoesHere);

authorization_data = AuthorizationData(
    authentication = <AuthenticationGoesHere>,
    customer_id = <CustomerIdGoesHere>,
    account_id = <AccountIdGoesHere>,
    developer_token = '<DeveloperTokenGoesHere>'
)

Get Your Account and Customer Ids

To get a user's customer ID and account ID, you can sign in to the Bing Ads web application and click on the Campaigns tab. The URL will contain a cid key/value pair in the query string that identifies your customer ID, and an aid key/value pair that identifies your account ID. For example, https://ui.bingads.microsoft.com/campaign/Campaigns.m?cid=FindCustomerIdHere&aid=FindAccountIdHere#/customer/FindCustomerIdHere/account/FindAccountIdHere/campaign.

Tip

Do not mistake the account number for the account identifier. The account number is the system generated account number that is used to identify the account in the Bing Ads web application. The account number has the form xxxxxxxx, where xxxxxxxx is a series of any eight alphanumeric characters. The API service requests only use the account identifier, and never use the account number.

With the Customer Management API you can get the customer and account identifiers for each authenticated user.

Call GetUser with your Bing Ads credentials and DeveloperToken. Within the Body set the UserId nil. The response will include a User object that contains the UserId.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<s:Envelope xmlns:s="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/">
  <s:Header>
    <h:ApplicationToken i:nil="true" xmlns:h="https://bingads.microsoft.com/Customer/v12" xmlns:i="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" />
    <h:AuthenticationToken xmlns:h="https://bingads.microsoft.com/Customer/v12">OAuthAccessTokenGoesHere</h:AuthenticationToken>
    <h:DeveloperToken xmlns:h="https://bingads.microsoft.com/Customer/v12">DeveloperTokenGoesHere</h:DeveloperToken>
  </s:Header>
  <s:Body>
    <GetUserRequest xmlns="https://bingads.microsoft.com/Customer/v12">
      <UserId i:nil="true" xmlns:i="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" />
    </GetUserRequest>
  </s:Body>
</s:Envelope>

Then call SearchAccounts with the UserId returned via the previous step. The returned advertiser account (or accounts) will include account and customer identifiers.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<s:Envelope xmlns:s="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/">
  <s:Header>
    <h:ApplicationToken i:nil="true" xmlns:h="https://bingads.microsoft.com/Customer/v12" xmlns:i="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" />
    <h:AuthenticationToken xmlns:h="https://bingads.microsoft.com/Customer/v12">OAuthAccessTokenGoesHere</h:AuthenticationToken>
    <h:DeveloperToken xmlns:h="https://bingads.microsoft.com/Customer/v12">DeveloperTokenGoesHere</h:DeveloperToken>
  </s:Header>
  <s:Body>
    <SearchAccountsRequest xmlns="https://bingads.microsoft.com/Customer/v12">
      <Predicates xmlns:a="https://bingads.microsoft.com/Customer/v12/Entities" xmlns:i="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
        <a:Predicate>
          <a:Field>UserId</a:Field>
          <a:Operator>Equals</a:Operator>
          <a:Value>UserIdGoesHere</a:Value>
        </a:Predicate>
      </Predicates>
      <Ordering i:nil="true" xmlns:a="https://bingads.microsoft.com/Customer/v12/Entities" xmlns:i="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" />
      <PageInfo xmlns:a="https://bingads.microsoft.com/Customer/v12/Entities" xmlns:i="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
        <a:Index>0</a:Index>
        <a:Size>10</a:Size>
      </PageInfo>
    </SearchAccountsRequest>
  </s:Body>
</s:Envelope>

Tip

See Search User Accounts Code Example for a code example that returns accounts for the current authenticated user.

Request Header Elements

Bing Ads services use Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) to exchange the request and response messages with the service operation. For more information, see Bing Ads Services Protocol.

Each SOAP request must include the following SOAP headers, which contain the user's credentials.

Note

The CustomerAccountId and CustomerId elements are not applicable for the Customer Billing and Customer Management services.

Element	Description	Data Type
ApplicationToken	This header element is not used and should be ignored.	string
AuthenticationToken	The OAuth access token that represents a Microsoft Account user who has permissions to Bing Ads accounts. For more information, see Authentication with OAuth.	string
CustomerAccountId	The identifier of the account that owns the entities in the request. This header element must have the same value as the AccountId body element when both are required. This element is required for most service operations, and as a best practice you should always set it.	string
CustomerId	The identifier of the customer that contains and owns the account. If you manage an account of another customer, you should use that customer ID instead of your own customer ID. This element is required for most service operations, and as a best practice you should always set it.	string
DeveloperToken	The developer token used to access the Bing Ads API.	string
Password	This element is reserved for internal use and will be removed from a future version of the API. You must use the AuthenticationToken element to set user credentials.	string
UserName	This element is reserved for internal use and will be removed from a future version of the API. You must use the AuthenticationToken element to set user credentials.	string

Need Help?

For troubleshooting tips, see Handling Service Errors and Exceptions.

To get help with issues that you cannot resolve, consider posting in the API Developer Forum where an active Bing Ads product team or community member will try and help. If you do not find timely information via the developer forum, or if the investigation involves sensitive account or personal details, please contact Bing Ads Support.