GCLID Generation on Impression: Does this effect Call Extension Calls?

[Sean Storlie]

Hello, 

I read the article that your team put out a few months back related to the fact that you will be changing the GCLID generation to impression time instead of click.  My questions are below:

1. Will Call Extension calls share this same behavior (i.e. GCLID will no longer be generated on clicking the call button, but on impression/Ad load instead).
2. And, please indicate a release date for this, Q4 is not necessarily adequate for developers that are programming against your API's, we need more specifics than a QTR time range.

http://googleadsdeveloper.blogspot.com/2016/10/google-click-id-gclid-will-now-be.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blogspot%2FlQlzL+%28Google+Ads+Developer+Blog+-+AdWords+API%29

Thank you in advance, 

~Sean.

[Thanet Knack Praneenararat (AdWords API Team)]

Hello Sean,

1. Will Call Extension calls share this same behavior (i.e. GCLID will no longer be generated on clicking the call button, but on impression/Ad load instead).

Yes, this is changed for all types of ads including extensions. GCLID will be generated at the impression time.

1. And, please indicate a release date for this, Q4 is not necessarily adequate for developers that are programming against your API's, we need more specifics than a QTR time range.

Please note that the change will be rolled out gradually. So, we can't tell the exact date of when the timing of GCLID generation of your ads get changed.

I would like note also that, if you don't implement anything depending on the assumption that GCLID is unique and is a 1-1 mapping to an ad click, your application will get no effects.

Only visible change would be that CLICK_PERFORMANCE_REPORT will have a new field Clicks (number of clicks for a given GCLID) available. 

Provided that most users don't click on ads many times per impression, this field would mostly contains a value of 1.

If your applications/tools do something based on the fact that GCLID is unique per click, please feel free to ask for help if needed.

Thanks in advance!

Best,

Thanet, AdWords API Team