Adwords ValueTrack Parameters

[ Adwords blog post images are pretty boring, so here’s a photo of my dog going crazy while up showshoeing a couple weeks ago. ]

I must have spent an hour hunting through the Adwords documentation as well as general Google searches to finally find the available ValueTrack parameters that are available as a part of the new Google URL Migrations.  Thought I’d share:

https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/6305348 (Click the dropdown link for “Final URL, tracking template, or custom parameter” to see all the options available)

For those that don’t know what this is:

Recently Google announced an update to how their tracking URL’s are handled, called “Upgraded URL’s”.  The problem with the old URL’s is that an Adwords campaign had a “destination” URL where you would indicate the URL you want the visitor to land on and could include tracking parameters in this.  Example: odd.dog/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=weird%20dogs&utm_campaign=weird%20dog%20campaign

The trouble was, if you ever changed an item in the tracking of this URL, the ad went back for approval.  This would cause downtime of the ad which would cost you or your client money.

TheUpgraded URL’s let’s you use a tracking template.  So after you define your “Final URL” which would be www.odddogmedia.com, you can then define a tracking template like:  utm_source={source}&utm_medium={medium}

This means a few things:

1. You never have to worry about your ads going offline for review if you change your tracking information.
2. Your ads will always have proper attribution in the tracking.
3. And the coolest – You can define a tracking template at a Campaign level, meaning you can standardize your tracking URL’s and never have to worry if you have added tracking to individual ads.

Here’s a great explainer video that Google put together: