Set up dynamic URL tracking for a hotel campaign

You can use dynamic tracking URLs to track traffic coming to your website from hotel campaigns in Google Ads. This can be configured through the tracking template and final URL suffix in your Google Ads account. You'll need to set the LPURL element in your landing page configuration in Hotel Center, which sets the final landing page for your ads to send traffic to.

Once you've set this up, users who click on your ad will be taken to an expanded link created using the tracking URLs in Google Ads and the LPURL element in the landing page configuration instead of the link you set in the URL element. If there is no LPURL element specified in your point of sale data, you won’t have any tracking URLs or parameters from Google Ads, and the ad will direct users to the expanded URL element. Learn more about the LPURL element. If the tracking template or final URL suffixes are defined in any of the parent levels, the LPURL element will be ignored, and the URL served will continue to be extracted from the URL element.

You can also use Google Ads tracking templates for your hotel campaigns to specify additional tracking information. For example, you can add ValueTrack parameters and custom parameters to your tracking templates or final URL suffixes.

Keep in mind

• Only ValueTrack parameters can be used in Google Ads tracking templates and final URL suffixes. ValueTrack parameters can’t be used in LPURL.
• Only landing page dynamic parameters can be used in the LPURL or URL element of the landing page file. They can’t be used in Google Ads tracking templates.

Instructions

Add tracking templates, final URL suffixes, and custom parameters to your Google Ads account, campaign, or adgroup

Tracking templates and final URL suffixes can be set at the account, campaign and adgroup level. Custom parameters can be set at the campaign and ad group level. Learn more about setting up tracking with ValueTrack parameters

Add ValueTrack templates to your hotel group

You can add tracking templates and final URL suffixes at the hotel group level. These fields could also be uploaded through bulk upload. Custom parameters are not supported at the hotel group level.

1. Sign in to your Google Ads account.
2. On the Campaigns page, click the campaign you want to edit.
3. Click Hotel groups from the page menu.
4. Click the columns icon .
5. Expand the “Attributes” section, and then check the boxes next to “Final URL suffix” and “Tracking template”.
6. Click Apply to save your changes.
7. If the hotel group that you want to edit has subdivisions, expand it to see those subdivisions.
8. For each subdivision in the Tracking template or Final URL suffix column, click the pencil icon, to add the final URL suffix and tracking templates.

Examples using tracking

Below are some examples of how to use the ValueTrack parameters. In all cases, we'll refer to the LPURL element specified in your landing page data. However, if there is no LPURL element specified in your landing page data, we will not use any ValueTrack templates or parameters from Google Ads.

Setting up LPURL for ValueTrack

To leverage new ValueTrack features in Google Ads, a new <LPURL> tag must be defined on the landing page(s) feed in Hotel Center. Learn more about the LPURL element

To configure the LPURL element, consider the contents of your current <URL> tag for each <PointOfSale>. Categorize the URL into one of the categories below and perform the corresponding change. It is recommended to isolate only the landing page component of the URL to be in LPURL. The <URL> tag should remain unchanged.

Category 1: The URL does not use any redirects to the final landing page.

<URL>http://partner.com/landing?hid=(PARTNER-HOTEL-ID)</URL>

If the URL is already the final landing page, add an <LPURL> tag in the landing page XML with the same URL contents.

Proposed Change:
<URL>http://partner.com/landing?hid=(PARTNER-HOTEL-ID)</URL>
<LPURL>http://partner.com/landing?hid=(PARTNER-HOTEL-ID)</LPURL>

Note: If you aren't using any cross-domain redirects in your URL, but want to append ValueTrack parameters using the tracking template or final URL suffix in Google Ads, the <URL> and <LPURL> tags for your XML file should contain the same landing page URL.

Category 2: The URL uses redirects that does not modify the landing page during redirect time

<URL>https://example.tracker.com?campaign_id=(CAMPAIGN-ID)&t_url=http://partner.com/landing%3Fhid%3D(PARTNER-HOTEL-ID)</URL>

Since there is a redirect through a third party tracker, add an <LPURL> tag in the landing page XML file that isolates the final landing page (marked in bold). Since LPURL is the final landing page, it doesn't need to be escaped anymore, a correct ValueTrack configuration in Google Ads will escape it automatically.

Proposed Change:
<URL>https://example.tracker.com?campaign_id=(CAMPAIGN-ID)&t_url=http://partner.com/landing%3Fhid%3D(PARTNER-HOTEL-ID)</URL>
<LPURL>http://partner.com/landing?hid=(PARTNER-HOTEL-ID)</LPURL>

The URL segments used solely used for tracking (in red) would be set in Google Ads tracking template as follows:

https://example.tracker.com?campaign_id={campaignid}&t_url={lpurl}

More Advanced Configurations

Category 3: The URL uses redirects to append static or tracking parameters to the landing page

<URL>https://partnerpage.com?language_code=(USER-LANGUAGE)&url=http://hotelbrandApage.com/landing%3Fhid%3D(PARTNER-HOTEL-ID)</URL>

There is a redirect in the URL, and it'll be used to modify the final landing page by adding a static or ValueTrack URL parameter at the end of the URL. Using the above example, the landing page URL needs to be modified to something like the following at redirect time:

http://hotelbrandApage.com/landing?hid=12345&orgin=partnerA&adgroupid=100001

This addition of landing page parameters should be done using the ValueTrack template’s final URL suffix field instead of relying on these redirects in the LPURL element or using the tracking template.

Proposed Change:
<URL>https://partnerpage.com?language_code=(USER-LANGUAGE)&url=http://hotelbrandApage.com/landing%3Fhid%3D(PARTNER-HOTEL-ID)</URL>
<LPURL>http://partner.com/landing?hid=(PARTNER-HOTEL-ID)</LPURL>

The tracking template can be configured to ensure URL tracking is still preserved:

https://partnerpage.com?language_code=(USER-LANGUAGE)&url={lpurl}

To ensure this additional URL parameter is added to the landing page, set final URL suffix as follows:

&origin=partnerA&adgroupid={adgroupid}

The following format of tracking template should be avoided:

https://partnerpage.com?language_code=(USER-LANGUAGE)&url={lpurl}%26orgin%3DpartnerA%26adgroupid%3D{adgroupid}

Instead, leave out landing page URL parameters from the tracking template and use final URL suffix to configure additional landing page suffixes as shown above.

Category 4: The URL uses redirects to modify the final landing page significantly

<URL>https://partnerpage.com?language_code=(USER-LANGUAGE)&url=http://hotelbrandApage.com/landing%3Fhid%3D(PARTNER-HOTEL-ID)</URL>

Although there's a redirect in the URL, the redirect is not used solely for tracking. The redirect might be used to modify the landing page URL in a complicated manner. For example, if the URL needs to be modified to something like the following during at redirecting time:

http://hotelbrandApage.com/subbrand/landing?hid=12345

The next step in this case is to add an <LPURL> tag in the landing page XML with the same URL contents.

Proposed Change:
<URL>https://partnerpage.com?language_code=(USER-LANGUAGE)&url=http://hotelbrandApage.com/landing%3Fhid%3D(PARTNER-HOTEL-ID)</URL>
<LPURL>https://partnerpage.com?language_code=(USER-LANGUAGE)&url=http://hotelbrandApage.com/landing%3Fhid%3D(PARTNER-HOTEL-ID)</LPURL>

Using tracking templates and final URL suffixes

If you'd like to work with redirects in your tracking templates or ValueTrack parameters, here are some examples of how your ValueTrack templates could be set up.

We recommend placing only URL segments used for third party tracking in the tracking template. Parameters that should be propagated to the final landing page should be configured using the final URL suffix.

Example: Appending ValueTrack parameters to landing pages

If your LPURL element indicates the following URL:

https://www.partnerdomain.com?checkinDate=(CHECKINDAY)

and you want your URLs to serve as the following:

https://www.partnerdomain.com?checkinDate=2001-01-01&adgroupid=123456

then you can set your tracking template as empty and your final URL suffix as follows:

adgroupid={adgroupid}

Note: Use tracking template for the purpose of adding URL parameters to landing page is discouraged. Consider the following configuration best practices.

Configuration best practices

Tip 1: Avoid tracking templates in the following format:

{lpurl}?campaign_id={campaignid}&adgroup_id={adgroupid}

If the purpose is to append URL tracking parameters to the landing page, use final URL suffix instead, leave the tracking template empty and set final URL suffix as:

campaign_id={campaignid}&adgroup_id={adgroupid}

Tip 2: Avoid adding escaped URL parameters in the tracking template:

https://example.tracker.com?t_url={lpurl}%26campaign_id%3D{campaignid}%26adgroup_id%3D{adgroupid}%26hotel_id={hotel_id}

In the above example, the campaignid and adgroupid URL parameters are escaped and meant to be sent to the landing page instead of the tracking service. To achieve the same result, it is recommended to set the tracking template as the following instead:

https://example.tracker.com?t_url={lpurl}&hotel_id={hotel_id}

Set final URL suffix as:

campaign_id={campaignid}&adgroup_id={adgroupid}

Example: Using redirects with tracking templates

Tracking templates should be used to configure any third party trackers that use redirects. Parameters passed to the landing page should still be appended using the final URL suffix.

If your LPURL element indicates the following URL:

https://www.partnerdomain.com?checkinDate=(CHECKINDAY)

and the URL you want to serve is the following:

https://www.semtracker-example.com/media/redir.php?prof=12&campaignid=89012232&networkType=s&url=https://www.partnerdomain.com%3DcheckinDate%3D2001-01-01&adgroupid%3D123456

with the landing page URL as:

https://www.partnerdomain.com?checkinDate=2001-01-01&adgroupid=123456

then you can set your tracking template as follows:

https://www.semtracker-example.com/media/redir.php?prof=12&campaignid={campaignid}&networkType={network}&url={lpurl}

and your final URL suffix as follows:

adgroupid={adgroupid}

Example: No LPURL set

If your LPURL element is undefined and the URL element indicates the following URL:

https://www.partnerdomain.com?checkinDate=(CHECKINDAY)

No matter what tracking parameters are set in Google Ads, the following URL will be served.

https://www.partnerdomain.com?checkinDate=2010-01-01

Tracking templates and final URL suffixes can be defined at the account, campaign, ad group, and hotel group level. Learn more about tracking templates and adding final URL suffixes.

Example: No tracking template or final URL suffix set

If the “URL” and “LPURL” is defined similar to the following URLs:

<URL>https://example.tracker.com?campaign_id=(CAMPAIGN-ID)&t_url=http://partner.com/landing%3Fhid%3D(PARTNER-HOTEL-ID)</URL>
<LPURL>http://partner.com/landing?hid=(PARTNER-HOTEL-ID)</LPURL>

If no tracking template or final URL suffix is set for the self or any parent levels, the ‘URL’ element will continue to be used and the LPURL is ignored. The served URL in this example would be:

https://example.tracker.com?campaign_id=100001&t_url=http://partner.com/landing%3Fhid%3Dabcde

Using custom parameters with your tracking templates

If you'd like to use custom parameters with your tracking templates, learn more about managing tracking and redirects. Custom parameters can be defined only at the campaign and ad group level.

Keep in mind

If you add tracking templates on multiple levels, Google Ads will use the most specific one. For example, if you have an ad group and hotel group level tracking template, the hotel group tracking template will be used.

If your tracking templates include ValueTrack parameters that indicate keyword information, like the parameter {keyword}, then those parameters will be blank for hotel ads. That's because Hotel Ads uses hotel groups and not keywords to show your ads. Likewise, ValueTrack parameters such {feeditemid}, {matchtype}, {devicemodel}, {placement}, and {adposition} will not be supported. However, more hotel specific parameters such as {hotel_id}, {hotel_partition_id}, {hotel_adtype}, and {hotelcenter_id} will be supported. Learn more about setting up tracking with ValueTrack parameters

Related links

• About tracking in Google Ads
• Set up tracking with ValueTrack parameters
• Landing pages file syntax