Campaign level Url tracking templates not being applied

[#1]

Hi, 

I am trying to append tracking to the end of my urls and im hoping to do this from the account level. (to save time when we make changes to the account)

I tried adding this template at the adgroup level and it worked fine:

{lpurl}?utm_medium=cpc&network=google&adgroup={adgroupid}&campaign={campaignid}&search_keyword={keyword}&matchtype={matchtype}&adposition={adposition}

When i moved this up to either campaign or account level, the template wont apply. It doesn't append anything to the advert urls at all.

Why does the behaviour differ at campaign or account level and what can I do to fix this?

Thanks

Matt

[#2 · Accepted solution]

Hi Matt,

Welcome to AdWords Community.

If you are going to use a Shared Tracking Template at the Account or Campaign level, make sure your Ad Level URL is set to FInal URL, not destination URL. 

Once you have set the Shared Tracking Template at Account Level, you can remove tracking from Ad Level. Make sure to test URL at Ad Level (Even when tracking is empty here, hit the test button). Here's how you can -

It will give you the exact URL that will be populated in actual browser. 

Hope it helps. 

Thanks
Ratan Jha

[#3]

Thankyou Ratan Jha,

This solution worked perfectly.

Cheers

Matt

[#4]

Hi Ratan Jha,

I have just noticed that when using this method, my landing page urls can contain two ?? symbols which will break the tracking.

Is there a way to account for this.

For example some landing pages may contain a ? and others dont. So when Google comes to append the tracking, some urls will work and others wont.

Two examples below, the first one wont track properly and the second one will.

www.example.co.uk/collection/xyz?sort_by=price-ascending
www.example.co.uk/collection/xyz

Many thanks.

[#5]

Hi Matt,

There's one where you can setup tracking for two question mark URLs. 

For instance, if the Final URL is www.example.co.uk/collection/xyz?sort_by=price-ascending

The Tracking Template can be {lpurl}&yourtrackinggoeshere

It means you can replace the question mark in Tracking Template with a '&'. 

But, there's a problem. If an adgroup has both the scenarios of URLs, with one '?' and with two '?'. One is sure to break. In the example above, all your normal Final URLs that do not have any question mark will break. 

So, the only solution is - have Ad level Tracking Template in this case. Or if possible move the the ads with no question mark URLs to a different ad group and use the regular tracking template with question mark. 

I know it's a problem, but there's no other wayout at this moment, at least to my knowledge.

Thanks
Ratan Jha

[#6]

Hi All,

As the ads are in single Ad Group, for the URL structure 1: the Ads with "?" in the final URL, you would need to add an ad-level tracking template {lpurl}&param=A...

For the URL structure 2: the ads without "?" in the final URL: you can use a Ad Group level shared tracking template {lpurl}?param=A...

Here's an article on setting up basic (local tracking template) and Advanced (shared tracking template) URL upgrades.

I hope that helps!
Kathleen