Google has added two landing page URL parameters options in Google Ads (previously known as AdWords). It would make it easier to specify landing page parameters. A new field “Final URL suffix” has been added to Google AdWords at the end of the URL and available custom parameters for the advertisers have been increased from 3 to 8. These changes allow you to add more options to landing page parameters. This is very helpful for third party tracking solutions.
In order to get a better insight into these new URL parameters, here is a quick understanding of parallel tracking.
Parallel tracking is a way of speeding up landing page load time. It separates the tracking parameter from the landing page URL. When a user clicks an ad, he is directly taken to the landing page URL while the tracking URL, AdWord click tracker or any other redirects load separately in the background. One of the major benefits is minimized lost visits, increased conversions and, improved ad performances.
One of the issues faced prior to Parallel Tracking was that customers had to go through one or more redirections before reaching our landing page. This would lead to the loss of visits and slow performance. Google addressed this issue by using the parallel tracking technique.
How to turn on Parallel Tracking
Search, Shopping, Display, and Video are opted for in parallel tracking. The steps are as follows:
Sign in to your Google Ads account
The first and the most obvious step to turn on parallel tracking is by signing in on your Google Ads account.
In the navigation menu on the left, choose Settings
Once you sign-in on the account, the navigation menu on the left takes you to All Campaigns, from where you use the page menu to click on Settings.
Click Account Settings
After Settings, Account Settings comes quite naturally. The Account Settings helps you to begin the parallel tracking for the pages.
Click Tracking
To actually begin the tracking, click on Tracking. It will display the URLs, even broken URLs to test the eligibility of those links.
To turn on “Parallel tracking”, click the switch next to it
As expected, the final step is to turn Parallel Tracking on. Parallel Tracking helps you catch errors in the process of finding the URLs. Although, not all faulty ads can be found through Parallel Tracking. Some of them always remain.
You can test your tracking setup for broken URLs by clicking the Test button beside the tracking template. For a broken broken URL a red x appears in the Status column.
Finally coming back to the new URL parameter options a few pointers are to be kept in mind for anyone making changes to the AD URL option:
You need to use AdWords Editor version 12.4 or higher to ensure that your previous URL and parallel tracking changes do not get deleted.
According to Google some of the edits made in your old ADWord UI for campaigns, ad groups, keywords, ads or extensions may be rejected so as a precaution all your edits should ideally be done in the new AdWord.
