About URL parameters

URL parameter is a way to pass information about a click through its URL.

You can insert URL parameters into your URLs so that your URLs track information about a click. URL parameters are made of a key and a value separated by an equals sign (=) and joined by an ampersand (&). The first parameter always comes after a question mark in a URL. For example, http://example.com?product=1234&utm_source=google

How URL parameters work

There are two types of URL parameters that you can use in your ad’s tracking template or custom parameter:

1. Content-modifying parameters pass information to the landing page and are required to be set in the final URL exclusively. For example http://example.com?productid=1234 would send someone directly to product 1234’s page on your website.
2. Tracking parameters pass information about the click for your account, campaign, or ad group in the tracking template. There are two types of tracking parameters:
   • Custom parameters represent an advertiser-defined value that can be set in the tracking template. For example, you could define{_campaign}=branding or {_campaign}=leads in your campaign's custom parameters and set your account tracking template to {lpurl}?source_campaign={_campaign} Learn more about creating custom parameters for advanced tracking
   • ValueTrack parameters represent the value in a URL parameter (e.g. the “{network}” in the URL parameter “network={network}”). The {network} parameter will record the network the click came from (Search Network or Display Network) in your ad's landing page URL. Learn more about ValueTrack parameters

Note: Changes to tracking templates take 24–48 hours to be reflected in your ads serving after updates are made.

URL parameters with anchors and AJAX fragments

Whether you are using the final URL, tracking template, or other URL parameter for tracking, it's important to note the impact anchors (#) and AJAX fragments (#!) have on your URLs. If you use an anchor or AJAX fragment in your final URL and your tracking template appends extra parameters to the end of the final URL, then you must put all the tracking parameters in your final URL. Ideally, these parameters would be behind an {ignore} tag in your final URL. Any time you use the {ignore} parameter in a final URL that contains a # or #! during crawls, Google Ads will consider everything between the {ignore} parameter and the # or #! as tracking information.

Example

Final URL: http://site.com?{ignore}param=1&tracking=1&device={device}#anchor

Tracking Template: http://redirect.com?url={unescapedlpurl}

Related links

• About tracking in Google Ads
• About ValueTrack parameters
• Test your landing page