About auto-tagging

Auto-tagging in Merchant Center helps in tracking website conversions. It allows you to collect conversion data on your website for Merchant Center.

Auto-tagging is turned on by default for new accounts. This article explains how auto-tagging works and how to turn it on or turn it off. Learn more about how the conversion data is used by Merchant Center.

Some browsers require auto-tagging to track conversions.

Why use it?

Auto-tagging is a required feature. It allows you to check how effectively clicks on your free listings and free local listings lead to valuable customer activity, such as website purchases, phone calls, app downloads, newsletter sign-ups and more. The setup process may vary depending on the conversion that you're tracking.

Note: Auto-tagging is the initial step in setting up conversion tracking. However, auto-tagging alone isn't enough to turn on conversion tracking. To complete the setup, you also need to add the conversion source. Auto-tagging helps to track offline conversions, such as sales at your physical shop from online advertising.

How it works

When someone clicks on a Google search result leading to your online shop, auto-tagging adds a bit of additional information to the URLs – specifically a parameter called srsltid.

For example, if someone clicks on the Google search result for www.example.com, the final URL will look like www.example.com/?srsltid=123xyz.

A small percentage of websites don't allow arbitrary URL parameters and display an error page when auto-tagging is turned on. Consult your web developer to check if this applies to you, or test it by clicking on your ad. If the link to your site works, then you can use auto-tagging. If you get an error, you'll need to turn off auto-tagging from your Merchant Center account. Then, ask your web developer to allow arbitrary URL parameters before turning it back on.

If your website uses redirects, it's also important to make sure that the GCLID is passed to the final landing page in order to track conversions.


Turn auto-tagging on or off

Auto-tagging is turned on by default for new accounts. To check the current status of auto-tagging in your account and turn it on or off, follow the steps below. If you're unable to use auto-tagging, you can use manual tagging to import Google Ads data in Google Analytics.

  1. In your Merchant Center account, click the settings and tools icon Tools and settings menu icon [Gear].
  2. Click Conversion settings.
  3. Toggle on or off Auto-tagging.

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