Final Urls and Criterion ImmutableId as custom parameter within Ad Final urls

[Giles Bodger]

Hi all,

Just looking at the possibilities for Final Urls and the migration from Destination Url and i have a couple of questions

1. I would like to add the Google generated CriterionImmutableId for the keyword used, as a custom parameter to my ad's Final Url. I see that i can add a CustomParameter object to the Keyword itself when i create it, but obviously at the time i create it i wont know the immutableId that Google assigns it. Is there a standard ValueTrack parameter i can use on the Ad's Final url that will allow me to obtain this?

This link here - https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/2375447?hl=en-GB - appears to hint towards using "targetid" as a tracking parameter.

If so, am i correct in saying that, if my Final Url for an Ad is "http://www.mysite.com/blah/?" and i have a tracking template of "{targetid}" assigned to it, then when my ad is served and i get a click on it, the url that the user will be sent to will be "http://www.mysite.com/blah?kwd=54687945125", where 54687945125 is the google assigned Criterion immutable Id ? 

If this is not available as a standard ValueTrack parameter then when creating my keywords via the API, would i have to create the Keyword, ascertain it's Google assigned ImmutableId (which we receive on creation via the API) and then assign a CustomParameter variable via the API - in essence making 2 API calls on each keyword's creation ?

Also how will the custom parameters be described within the reports?

2. We currently have our internal tracking added to the landing page as a querystring. If we did nothing before we were automatically upgraded, what would be the possible issues we could face ?

Many thanks in advance

Giles

[Josh Radcliff (AdWords API Team)]

Hi Giles,

Regarding your first question, the targetid parameter will behave as you described, although it will contain a hyphen (-) instead of an equals sign (=). That is, it will consist of kwd-54687945125. Note that it may contain additional criteria IDs as shown in the example in the Help Center for Standard parameters.

On question #2, could you provide some examples so I can better understand the question?

Thanks,

Josh, AdWords API Team

[Giles Bodger]

HI Josh

My Second question was really just about whether if we did NOTHING and let the system auto upgrade our destinationUrls then what would be the consequences. ON further reading and discussion i am thinking there would be no consequences for the day to day running of our operation (we are a little different to your many posters here as we have an inhouse implementation of the API integration as opposed to using an agency).

So from the 1st of July you will start to migrate accounts and do the following for the following entities

Ad - DestinationUrl will be moved into FinalUrls

Keyword - Url will be moved into FinalUrls

Sitelink - Url will be moved into FinalUrls

We dont think things will affect us greatly, other than the fact that if we create any new entities we should not try to set the (as of 1st July) readonly url fields, and instead use the FinalUrl fields

I have another question though - 

We have previously used an internal tracking querystring on our ads and keywords as follows .....

AdGroupCriterion url

http://www.myDomain?AffiliateID=49&adposition={adposition}&AdID={creative}&trackingParam=blah-000001

Ad url

http://www.myDomain?AffiliateID=49&adposition={adposition}&AdID={creative}&trackingParam=blah

...we can now take advantage of the new trackingUrlTemplate on our Ads and have the Keyword immutableId injected at click time.

So a Final Url on the Ad of

http://www.myDomain?AffiliateID=49

and a tracking template on the Ad of

"{lpurl}&adposition={adposition}&AdID={creative}&keywordId={targetid}

And then we dont need to have ANY DestinationUrl or FinalUrl on our keywords 

BUT

We have many many keywords already in existance. What we want to do is simply remove all the Destination urls / Final urls (if auto upgraded) from the Keywords and default through to the Ad FinalUrl / trackinUrlTemplate - all well and good, but how can we remove these without resetting the stats on the keyword ? 

Also 

upgrading our Ads, we dont want to have to change them and loose performance data, the auto upgrade, we think, will simply move the DestinationUrl to the FinalUrl. In order to then tag the targetid valuetrack parameter to the click, i think we could simply add a trackingUrlTemplate of

{lpurl}&keywordId={targetid}

Are we allowed to amend the Ad's trackingUrlTemplate after Ad creation ?

Alot of questions i know so thanks very much in advance

Giles

[Josh Radcliff (AdWords API Team)]

Hi Giles,

Please see my responses below in blue.

Cheers,

Josh, AdWords API Team

On Wednesday, June 17, 2015 at 7:56:05 AM UTC-4, Giles Bodger wrote:

HI Josh

My Second question was really just about whether if we did NOTHING and let the system auto upgrade our destinationUrls then what would be the consequences. ON further reading and discussion i am thinking there would be no consequences for the day to day running of our operation (we are a little different to your many posters here as we have an inhouse implementation of the API integration as opposed to using an agency).

So from the 1st of July you will start to migrate accounts and do the following for the following entities

Ad - DestinationUrl will be moved into FinalUrls

Keyword - Url will be moved into FinalUrls

Sitelink - Url will be moved into FinalUrls

We dont think things will affect us greatly, other than the fact that if we create any new entities we should not try to set the (as of 1st July) readonly url fields, and instead use the FinalUrl fields

I have another question though - 

We have previously used an internal tracking querystring on our ads and keywords as follows .....

AdGroupCriterion url

http://www.myDomain?AffiliateID=49&adposition={adposition}&AdID={creative}&trackingParam=blah-000001

Ad url

http://www.myDomain?AffiliateID=49&adposition={adposition}&AdID={creative}&trackingParam=blah

...we can now take advantage of the new trackingUrlTemplate on our Ads and have the Keyword immutableId injected at click time.

So a Final Url on the Ad of

http://www.myDomain?AffiliateID=49

and a tracking template on the Ad of

"{lpurl}&adposition={adposition}&AdID={creative}&keywordId={targetid}

And then we dont need to have ANY DestinationUrl or FinalUrl on our keywords 

BUT

We have many many keywords already in existance. What we want to do is simply remove all the Destination urls / Final urls (if auto upgraded) from the Keywords and default through to the Ad FinalUrl / trackinUrlTemplate - all well and good, but how can we remove these without resetting the stats on the keyword ? 

For keywords (and other types of BiddableAdGroupCriterion), you can update the keyword and clear the finalUrls field by setting it to a UrlList with an empty urls list. Similarly, you can clear the trackingUrlTemplate by setting it to an empty string (""). This will not reset the stats on those keywords, since the IDs won't change.

Note, however, that changes to keywords will potentially stop your ads from serving while the changes are being policy reviewed. See the Updating upgraded URLs section of the guide for details.

Also 

upgrading our Ads, we dont want to have to change them and loose performance data, the auto upgrade, we think, will simply move the DestinationUrl to the FinalUrl. In order to then tag the targetid valuetrack parameter to the click, i think we could simply add a trackingUrlTemplate of

{lpurl}&keywordId={targetid}

Are we allowed to amend the Ad's trackingUrlTemplate after Ad creation ?

Ads are immutable, so you won't be able to update those fields via a SET operation. Instead, you'll have to REMOVE the existing ad and ADD a new one with the desired attributes.