Tracking Template on AdGroup Level (or higher)

[ralf.s]

Hello,

we want to use tracking templates on adgroup level (or higher).

We would like to set it to eg.

  {lpurl}?para2=value

Will this work for all final URLs of all ads and keywords in this adgroup?

What happens, if a final URL already contains a question mark? eg.

  http://www.anydomain.com?para1=x

How will the target URL in this case look like?

Either

1. http://www.anydomain.com?para1=x?para2=value

or

2. http://www.anydomain.com?para1=x&para2=value

The first case would create an invalid URL. Most Browsers will evaluate parameter para1 as "x?para2=value" and will miss para2.

What is the preffered way to set a tracking template and adgroup level?

Kind Regards

Ralf

[Josh Radcliff (AdWords API Team)]

Hi Ralf,

The substitution is a simple replacement, so in your example, you would get the URL from option #1.

You may want to check out our Upgraded URLs presentation on the AdWords API Workshops site, as it contains both a video of the presentation and the accompanying slides.

In addition, we recently published a guide on upgraded URL expansion rules that may be helpful.

Cheers,

Josh, AdWords API Team

[Mark]

To answer your question directly...

If you have a mix of urls with and without pre-existing parameters (ie the ? char), you must find a way to separate them when building tracking templates, and manually use ? for the ones without parms and & for the ones with parms. Another workaround (although painful) would be to have a third party tracking server digest the tracking parms and redirect to your final landing page url (as an encoded lpurl).

Like you (probably), I spent a ton of time looking for an answer to this question and I am responding in the hopes that I will be contradicted with an actual direct link to the contrary.

On a related note, in the past, some feeds allowed for a way to add parameters to a url, whether it had pre-existing parms or not (as in google shopping, search for adwords_queryparm). So google is probably aware of this problem but some amount of common sense has been lost along the deployment cycle.

[ralf.s]

Hi Josh,

Thanks for your quick answer.

According to it, Tracking templates on ad or higher level are only possible, if all final-urls follow the same scheme: all having already parameters or none have parameters.

Because in real life, you cannot ensure this, tracking templates on ad level ist NOT possible.

Kind Regards

Ralf

[Josh Radcliff (AdWords API Team)]

Hi Ralf,

The {lpurl} parameter will be escaped unless it's at the beginning of your tracking template. If that parameter value is escaped, will you still have the problem with two question marks since the one coming from lpurl will have an escaped question mark?

Thanks,

Josh, AdWords API Team

[ralf.s]

Hello Josh,

what if final-url contains parameters and final-mobile-url not?

Would it be possible, to set a correct tracking-template with additional parameters?

I think NOT.

Kind Regards

Ralf

[Josh Radcliff (AdWords API Team)]

Hi Ralf,

If you have a common pattern of mobile vs. desktop URLs (e.g., final URL always has parameters but final mobile URL does not), you could use the ifmobile and ifnotmobile parameters mentioned in Example #6 here to specify different tracking templates for the two cases.

Thanks,

Josh, AdWords API Team

[pete]

Completely agree with Mark - Google have used some run-time logic to append params with the appropriate param delimiter in the past.

In fact - a Value Track parameter {delim} would be perfect.

What say you Google?

pete 

[Josh Radcliff (AdWords API Team)]

Hi Pete,

Thanks for the suggestion. I'll pass this along to the upgraded URLs team.

Cheers,

Josh, AdWords API Team

[Dorian Kind]

Hey Josh,

any news on this topic? The current situation makes it very hard to use tracking templates for DSA campaigns because there's no way to tell whether the final URL of the dynamically generated ad already contains a query string separator or not.

Thanks for any feedback and best regards,
Dorian

[Josh Radcliff (AdWords API Team)]

Hi Dorian,

I don't have any news at this point, but I'll check in with the upgraded URLs team again and let you know if they have an update.

Thanks,

Josh, AdWords API Team

[Josh Radcliff (AdWords API Team)]

Hi Dorian,

I have great news: this feature was added recently. Please check out the updated Tracking template only section of this Help Center article:

https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/2375447?hl=en#params

In particular, the area starting with the Important box and below covers this feature.

Cheers,

Josh, AdWords API Team

[Dorian Kind]

Hi Josh,

great news indeed! Thanks a lot for your update.

Best regards,

Dorian

[Dorian Kind]

Because I keep coming back to this topic to look for the documentation link: The Help Center article Josh mentioned seems to have moved here: https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/6305348