Can I scrape Bing Ads data?

Scraping Bing Ads data, or data from any advertising platform, can be a sensitive topic and may violate terms of service or user agreements. Before attempting to scrape data from Bing Ads or any other online service, it is crucial to review the terms of service, privacy policy, and any other relevant legal documentation provided by the service. Unauthorized scraping could lead to legal consequences, account suspension, or a ban from the service.

If you have legitimate access to Bing Ads data—such as data from your own campaigns—you should use the official APIs provided by the service for accessing your data. Most advertising platforms offer APIs to advertisers to programmatically access their data, which is the recommended and legal way to do so.

For Bing Ads, Microsoft Advertising provides an API for this purpose. The Microsoft Advertising API allows developers to manage their advertising campaigns along with retrieving various reports that include metrics and data related to their ads.

Here's how you can access your Bing Ads data using the Microsoft Advertising API in a legal and supported manner:

1. Setup Microsoft Advertising API Access

To get started with the Microsoft Advertising API, follow these steps:

• Register your application to use the Microsoft identity platform endpoint.
• Get client ID and client secret for your registered application.
• Request an access token from the Microsoft identity platform endpoint.

2. Use the API to Retrieve Data

Using the Microsoft Advertising API, you can programmatically retrieve your campaign data. Here is an example of how you might do it in Python using the OAuth2 authentication.

First, install the required packages:

pip install requests

Then, use the following Python script to authenticate and retrieve data:

import requests

# Replace these variables with your own data
client_id = 'YOUR_CLIENT_ID'
client_secret = 'YOUR_CLIENT_SECRET'
tenant_id = 'YOUR_TENANT_ID'
account_id = 'YOUR_ACCOUNT_ID'
customer_id = 'YOUR_CUSTOMER_ID'
refresh_token = 'YOUR_REFRESH_TOKEN'  # Obtain this through the OAuth flow

# Get access token
def get_access_token(client_id, client_secret, tenant_id, refresh_token):
    token_url = f'https://login.microsoftonline.com/{tenant_id}/oauth2/token'
    data = {
        'grant_type': 'refresh_token',
        'refresh_token': refresh_token,
        'client_id': client_id,
        'client_secret': client_secret,
        'resource': 'https://ads.microsoft.com'
    }
    response = requests.post(token_url, data=data)
    response.raise_for_status()
    return response.json()['access_token']

# Call the API to retrieve data
def get_campaign_data(access_token, account_id, customer_id):
    api_url = f'https://api.ads.microsoft.com/Reporting/v13/CampaignPerformanceReportRequest'
    headers = {
        'Authorization': f'Bearer {access_token}',
        'Content-Type': 'application/json',
        'DeveloperToken': 'YOUR_DEVELOPER_TOKEN',  # Obtain this from your Bing Ads account
        'CustomerId': customer_id,
        'AccountId': account_id
    }
    # Define your report request here (refer to the API documentation for the correct format)
    report_request = {}
    response = requests.post(api_url, headers=headers, json=report_request)
    response.raise_for_status()
    return response.content

# Example usage
try:
    access_token = get_access_token(client_id, client_secret, tenant_id, refresh_token)
    campaign_data = get_campaign_data(access_token, account_id, customer_id)
    print(campaign_data)
except requests.HTTPError as e:
    print(f'An HTTP error occurred: {e.response.status_code}')

3. Review the API Documentation

The Microsoft Advertising API documentation provides detailed information on how to construct your requests, including the types of reports you can generate and the various metrics available. Be sure to review the documentation carefully to understand how to use the API effectively.

Conclusion

While scraping Bing Ads data directly from the web interface without permission is likely against the terms of service, using official APIs provided by the platform is the correct and legal way to access the data you need. Always make sure to follow the best practices and guidelines set forth by the platform when accessing your data programmatically.