Adgroup tracking templates and MISSING_TRACKING_URL_TEMPLATE_TAG

[james]

Hi,

I am hoping that someone could point me to a clear set of rules as to what is allowed in Campaign and Adgroup level tracking templates.

From our testing it looks as if they are required to contain the {lpurl} token (or one of its variants).

I have tried other tokens: {keyword} {creative} {targetid} {_customwhatever} but always fail with the MISSING_TRACKING_URL_TEMPLATE_TAG error.

 

So is this a definite rule that Adgroup/Campaign tracking templates must contain {lpurl} (or one of its variants)?

 

If so, is the complete list as shown here:

https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/2375447?hl=en-AU

    {lpurl}

    {lpurl+2}

    {lpurl+3}

    {unescapedlpurl}

    {escapedlpurl}

or are there others that are also allowed?

[Josh Radcliff (AdWords API Team)]

Hi,

At the campaign and ad group level, you shouldn't have to include the {lpurl} parameter or one of its variants. In fact, I just tried creating a template without {lpurl} and it was successful.

However, if you are setting the tracking template for a Dynamic Search Ad or Product Ad, you do have to include the {lpurl} parameter or one of its variants (see our Dynamic Search Ads guide).

If you're getting this error when trying to set the template at the campaign or ad group level (or for an ad type besides DynamicSearchAd or ProductAd), could you send over the requestId from the failed request so I can investigate further?

Thanks,

Josh, AdWords API Team

[james]

Thanks for following up Josh.

The most recent request ID which failed is

00051683883f9f180ab6c8c533004b1e

 

The error is:

<errorString>UrlError.MISSING_TRACKING_URL_TEMPLATE_TAG</errorString>
<ApiError.Type>UrlError</ApiError.Type>
<reason>MISSING_TRACKING_URL_TEMPLATE_TAG</reason>

For comparision an update which worked on the same adgroup is:

0005168d889cd2a10ab63c055e003214

 

I have full SOAP request and response to if needed.

 

Thanks

[Josh Radcliff (AdWords API Team)]

Hi James,

I spoke with our resident upgraded URLs expert, and it turns out that all "shared" templates require {lpurl} or one of its variants in the trackingUrlTemplate. By "shared", I mean all templates at the account, campaign, or ad group level. See the third bullet point in the Prepare for Upgraded URLs section of our guide.

Sorry for the initial confusion on my part. Hope this clears things up.

Thanks,

Josh, AdWords API Team

[james]

Thanks Josh,

We'll add that validation to our system. I'll assume the complete list of variants is the 5 I included in my original post.

[Josh Radcliff (AdWords API Team)]

Hi James,

Sorry - I forgot to answer that question in my previous post. AFAIK, the 5 you listed represent the complete set of lpurl variants.

Cheers,

Josh, AdWords API Team

[Dorian Kind]

Hi Josh,

sorry to ressurect this thread, but I've just stumbled upon this behavior. We have a case where a client uses Flurry Analytics to track his app downloads. There's an app for Android and iOS each, and a handful of campaigns promoting either of the two. The tracking links coming from Flurry don't contain the actual App Store / Google Play link, so I presumed they could just set the respective tracking link on the campaign and tag each ad with the actual App Store or Google Play link.

Unfortunately and as explained below, that won't work as the shared templates must contain a final URL parameter. I suppose this means that we have to use the same tracking template on each iOS/Android ad, which is certainly doable but seems a bit excessive.

Is there any specific reasoning behind requiring {lpurl} or similar in shared tracking templates or is this something that might be dropped at a later point?

Thanks for your feedback and best regards,

Dorian

[Josh Radcliff (AdWords API Team)]

Hi Dorian,

I believe the logic behind requiring {lpurl} or one of its variants at the shared (account/campaign/ad group) level is that in the vast majority of cases, a tracker is going to need the final URL and won't simply be able to infer it from the other parameters in the trackingUrlTemplate.

For those whose trackers don't require the final URL, such as in your case, couldn't you use the shared template with the knowledge that the lpurl variant will simply be ignored? I would think that additional parameters like this wouldn't cause a problem, but maybe I'm missing something.

Thanks,

Josh, AdWords API Team

[Dorian Kind]

Hi Josh,

sorry for the late reply and thanks for your response. I didn't get around to try the solution you suggested, but will do the next time we have clients that use Flurry for app download tracking.

Thanks again & cheers,
Dorian