When and how to generate click-tracking URLs by ad network and object

Ad Network

Component

How to Generate a Click-tracking URL

Baidu, Google Ads, Microsoft Advertising, Yahoo! Japan Ads, and Yandex

• text ads
• keywords
• (Google Ads content campaigns) placements
• (Google Advertising and Advertising) sitelinks

When the tracking settings for an active campaign include the options “EF Redirect” and “Auto Upload” (either set at the campaign level or inherited from the account settings), you don’t need to generate tracking URLs for the ad group components. Search, Social, & Commerce automatically creates and uploads the following types of tracking URLs to the ad network each time it synchronizes with it: a) (accounts with final URLs) Search, Social, & Commerce tracking parameters for tracking templates and the same parameters appended to the final URLs, b) (accounts with destination URLs) new destination URLs embedded with Search, Social, & Commerce tracking code, and c) (Google Ads and Microsoft Advertising accounts) landing page suffix (final URL suffix) parameters.

If the Auto Upload option is disabled, then you can generate tracking URLs for a component in any of the following ways:

• (Google Ads, Microsoft Advertising, Yahoo! Ads, and Yandex) When you post ads from feed files, select the Generate Tracking URLs option. You can optionally validate the tracking template fields in any bulksheet file before you post it to the ad network.

• When you download, upload, or post a bulksheet file containing the component, select the Generate Tracking URLs option. For accounts with destination URLs, you can optionally validate the Base URL/Final URL fields fields before you post the file to the ad network

• Use the Tracking URLs tool to generate a tracking URL and manually add it to the appropriate Tracking Template or Base URL field. Note: The tracking templates you generate don’t include any additional tracking parameters specified in the account or campaign settings.

  • Google accounts) Go to the Tracking URLs tool, copy the on-screen value in the appropriate Tracking Template field, and manually add the entire tracking string to the component settings. You must add a Google Ads ValueTrack parameter for the final URL after the &url= parameter (such as {lpurl}). For a list of ValueTrack parameters to indicate final URLs in tracking templates, see the “Tracking template only” parameters in the section on “Available ValueTrack Parameters” in the [Google Ads documentation]9https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/2375447.
  • (Other accounts with final URLs) Generate a tracking URL using the Tracking URLs tool, and manually add the entire tracking string to the component settings. You must add a parameter for the final URL after the &url= parameter (such as {lpurl}). For Yahoo! Japan Ads accounts, use the parameter {lpurl}. For a list of Microsoft Advertising parameters to indicate final URLs in tracking templates, see the Microsoft Advertising documentation.
  • (Accounts with destination URLs) Generate a tracking URL using the Tracking URLs tool, and manually add the tracking URL in the appropriate Base URL field.

Notes:

• (Accounts with final URLs) The tracking template at the most granular level is used (for example, a keyword-level tracking template overrides the account-, campaign- and ad group-level templates, and tracking templates for keywords and placements override those for the associated ad).
• Adobe Advertising maps clicks and resulting revenue from sitelinks to the keyword associated with the ad in which the sitelink is included, not separately. See “Supported inventory.”

Tip: (Accounts with final URLs) Tracking is easiest to manage if you create tracking templates at only the highest level necessary — for example, account- or campaign-level tracking templates to apply the same tracking to all entities in the account or campaign.

Google Ads

phone extensions

n/a

Google Ads, Microsoft Advertising

product ads

• Microsoft Merchant Center accounts: Manually create a tracking URL for each product in your Microsoft Merchant Center account using the tracking template format for shopping ads, and manually add it to the Tracking Template field in the account, campaign, or product group settings.
  
  Alternately, you can add the tracking URL to the product data within the Microsoft Merchant Center account. To do so, include the tracking URL, together with the value in the “link” or “mobile_link” fields, as appropriate, in a custom column “bingads_redirect” within the product feed. The value in the “bingads_redirect” field replaces the values in the “link” and “mobile_link” fields. URLs generated using this method don’t include any tracking parameters specified in the account settings.
  
  Note: The account-level and campaign-level feature to automatically upload tracking during sync doesn’t generate tracking for new Microsoft Advertising product groups. A workaround is to generate tracking when you upload or post a bulksheet.
• Google Merchant Center accounts: Generate tracking URLs using the Tracking URLs tool, and manually add them to the Tracking Template fields in the account, campaign, or product group settings.

Naver

keywords

You can set up click tracking for all ads via bulk sheets. Alternately, you can manually generate tracking URLs for ads, and manually add them to the ad settings using the ad network’s editor. See “Implement Naver tracking-only accounts.”

Yahoo! Display Network

text and display ads

When the tracking settings for an active campaign include the options “EF Redirect” and “Auto Upload” (either set at the campaign level or inherited from the account settings), you don’t need to generate tracking URLs for the ads. Search, Social, & Commerce automatically creates and uploads new destination URLs embedded with tracking code to the ad network each time it synchronizes with it.

If the Auto Upload option is disabled, then you can generate tracking URLs using the Tracking URLs tool, and manually add them to the ad settings using the ad network’s editor.