How to implement Google Ads on the platform (server side)

There are various reasons to track traffic and conversions caused by Google Ads in your Ingenious platform:

  • you can see clicks and conversion by Google Ads among other traffic sources (omni channel view)

  • Google Ads traffic will be included in conversion attribution and customer journeys

  • you can profit from the accuracy and the high tracking quality of the Ingenious platform and transmit the conversions back to your Google Ads account server side (to prevent quality loss)

 

 

Contents

 

Before you start

Before you start, make sure you have set up in your Ingenious platform

  • A partner (and ad space) that represent Google Ads

  • A relation between your Google Ads partner and your advertiser

  • Commissions for the Google Ads partner are defined (recommended: 0 EUR for tracking purposes. Do not leave the commission undefined/empty.)

  • At least one creative (e.g. text link)

 

Also, make sure that in your Google Ads account auto tagging is enabled (it adds automatically the gclid to target URLs)

 

Click tracking in Google Ads

First, you need to make sure that clicks from Google Ads are counted in your Ingenious platform. This means, you will have the clicks in reporting and those touchpoints then can be considered in conversion attribution.

There are basically two ways to implement click tracking in Google Ads. Either way will work, you only need to choose one way (parallel tracking OR bounceless tracking)

Parallel tracking

Parallel tracking means, the click to the Ingenious sever is executed in parallel (and server side) by Google Ads.

More details about how to work with parallel Tracking: Google Ads help

We recommend to use this template

https://measure.ingenioustech.biz/ts/{EXT_ADV_ID}/tsc?typ=r&amc={AMC_CODE}&smc5={gclid}&rmd=3&trg={lpurl}

or

https://{TRACKING_DOMAIN}/ts/{EXT_ADV_ID}/tsc?typ=r&amc={AMC_CODE}&smc5={gclid}&rmd=3&trg={lpurl}

 

Explanation of placeholders and values that need to be replaced

Note: All information is contained in a click tracking link (can be generated via partner account)

Placeholder

description

example

Placeholder

description

example

{TRACKING_DOMAIN}

The tracking domain of your advertiser in the Ingenious platform. Maybe you use a first party tracking domain? It would be nice to use your own domain, however, since it is server side, the Ingenious domain may be used as well.

measure.ingenioustech.biz

{EXT_ADV_ID}

external advertiser id, a number that starts with i. Can be taken from any bounce tracking link / creative when logged in as partner

i123456

{AMC_CODE}

amc code for your google ads partner. Can be taken from any tracking link / creative when logged in as partner

search.ing.1234.56789.CZQPGHFD

 

{gclid} and {lpurl} are placeholders that you should leave as they are. They will be replaced by Google Ads.

How to fetch a tracking link from a partner account:

  • Login to the partner account that was created for Google Ads and go to the creatives section. Proceed to select the advertiser for which you are implementing Ads and the ad space corresponding with the Ads account from which you manage this advertiser. After you have selected the advertiser and the ad space, go to the Creative Set you created for SEA partners only and copy the click URL of the relevant campaign link.

 

Bounceless tracking

Before you start:

  • this option should only be used, if you have an Ingenious first party tracking domain in use

  • the onpage tag must be implemented on your website

Simply add the following tracking parameters to every target URL in your Google Ads account:

&amc={AMC_CODE}&smc5={gclid}

Please make sure, that you replace {AMC_CODE} with the amc code of your Google Ads partner. You can get the amc code from your Google Ads parter account:

  • Login to the partner account that was created for Google Ads and go to the creatives section. Proceed to select the advertiser for which you are implementing Ads and the ad space corresponding with the Ads account from which you manage this advertiser. After you have selected the advertiser and the ad space, go to the Creative Set you created for SEA partners only and copy the click URL of the relevant campaign link (ideally the bounceless version).

{gclid} is a placeholder that you should leave as it is. It will be replaced by Google Ads.

 

Transmit gclid in conversion tag

The Ingenious system is capable of working with external click Ids, such as Google Ads gclid. However, to make this work, it needs to be transmitted in the conversion tag.

If you are not (yet) familiar with this topic, pleas read on here:

 

Configure webhook

The webhook transmits conversions of the Google Ads partner (Ingenious system) to your Google Ads account. This can and should be done server side.

If you are not (yet) familiar on how to work with webhooks: Read more about how to implement webhooks here

 

target configuration

Login as the Google Ads partner, go to Integrations > Webhooks > Manager

then click the button create new target configuration

In the filed target URL paste this tag:

https://www.googleadservices.com/pagead/conversion/(GOOGLE_CONVERSION_ID)/?value=10.0&label=(GOOGLE_LABEL)&guid=ON&gclaw=#{FREE_PARAM_smc5}&script=0

 

make sure to replace

(GOOGLE_CONVERSION_ID) with your Google Conversion Id (from you Google conversion tag)

(GOOGLE_LABEL) with the label from the Google conversion tag

Find out more in the Google help

 

rule

Once your target configuration is saved, create a rule to execute the target configuration server side.