How Google Analytics associates user sessions with Search Ads 360 visits

When you link your Search Ads 360 account with Google Analytics, Search Ads 360 makes sure that the following URL parameters are appended to your landing page URLs:

• gclid: Contains a case-sensitive click ID.
  
  In Google Ads accounts, Google Ads appends this parameter to the landing page URL when a customer clicks an ad. In other types of engine accounts, Search Ads 360 appends the parameter just before forwarding a click to the landing page.

• gclsrc: Indicates whether Google Ads or Search Ads 360 generated the click ID. The value of gclsrc will be one of the following:

  • gclsrc=aw.ds: the click ID was generated by a Google Ads account that is managed by Search Ads 360.

  • gclsrc=ds: the click ID was generated by Search Ads 360 for an account that doesn't use parallel tracking.

  • gclsrc=3p.ds: the click ID was generated by a parallel tracking-enabled account other than Google Ads.

  • gclsrc=: the parameter is empty if the click ID was generated by Google Ads but neither Google Analytics support nor the conversion API service are enabled in Search Ads 360.

  In accounts that use parallel tracking, Search Ads 360 adds the gclsrc parameter to a Final URL Suffix just before trafficking updates to the engine. You won't see the parameter in Search Ads 360, but if you sign into the engine and view the Final URL Suffix, you'll see them in the engine. 

  In other types of engine accounts, Search Ads 360 appends the parameter just before forwarding a click to the landing page.

Seeing other parameters in your landing page URLs?

Other Google products may add other parameters to your landing page URLs, such as dclid. If you're seeing something other than gclid and gclsrc, check with the other Google products you use.

Not seeing gclid and gclsrc parameters in your landing-page URLs?

If you use a third-party tag-management system with Analytics, your landing-page URLs may not include the gclid and gclsrc parameters, and consequently Search Ads 360 will not import data from Analytics. To guarantee that your landing-page URLs include the necessary parameters, use the Google tag or Google Tag Manager with Analytics.

How Search Ads 360 and Google Analytics use the gclid and gclsrc parameters

When a customer lands on the advertiser’s site, Google Analytics scans the URL parameters. If it sees the gclid parameter, and if you've linked the Analytics property that's tracking data on your site to Search Ads 360, Google Analytics sends information about that visit, such as revenue and item counts, to Search Ads 360. Google Analytics uses its own logic to determine how long the user session lasts, and therefore how many events to associate with the click ID.

Google Analytics also uses the gclid parameter to import referral information from Search Ads 360.

Search Ads 360 may be unable to directly measure conversions imported from Google Analytics goals and transactions when website cookies that store information about your ad clicks aren't available. This may be due to factors such as browser settings or application settings, even if you use one of Google's sitewide tagging solutions.

Specifying additional UTM parameters

If you want to track Microsoft Advertising and Yahoo! Japan paid search data in Google Analytics or override some of the referral data provided by Search Ads 360, you can add Analytics custom campaign parameters such as utm_campaign to your landing page URLs. Google Analytics will use the data from the parameters instead of from Search Ads 360 with the following exceptions:

• utm_medium: Google Analytics will report cpc regardless of any value you specify.

• utm_source: Google Analytics will report google for Google Ads campaigns and use the specified value for non-Google Ads campaigns.

If you override autotags generated by Google Ads with manual tags:

• Search Ads 360 will still be able to report on Google Analytics data, since Search Ads 360 does not rely on the data in UTM URL parameters (though it does require the GCLID parameter).
• In Google Analytics:
  • The Search Ads 360 reports will function correctly, since these reports do not rely on the data in UTM URL parameters.
  • If you add Search Ads 360 dimensions and metrics to custom reports, you'll see the same values that you find in the Search Ads 360 reports, which are not affected by manual tags. If you add Source, Medium, Campaign, 
    Search Term, or Ad Content to custom reports you'll see the data you specified in the manual tags. 
  • If the utm_source and utm_medium parameters specify any value other than "google" and "cpc", the Google Ads reports will not attribute sessions to your Google Ads campaigns. These reports use the data you specified manually instead of the original data from the autotags.