What Are Tracking Templates and How To Merge ClickPatrol With Other Existing Tracking Templates?

Every advertiser has at some point wondered what the deal is with tracking templates. Are they important? How do they work? How do i add tracking templates to my website? And many other questions. How do they affect my adds? Etc. Here’s a quick guide to tracking templates and 

What are tracking templates

Tracking templates are simply slight modifications to your website or landing page URLs that help you track clicks to your website. They use tracking parameters to customize your landing page URL. 

To effectively track clicks from ad campaigns and ad groups, you should put your URL tracking information in a tracking template. Tracking templates can be defined at the account level, ad group level, campaign level, and keyword level. Keyword-level tracking templates are the most specific.

Why are tracking templates important?

Tracking templates help you capture more data about the source of your clicks. 

In Google ads, tracking templates help you capture more performance data needed to help you optimize your targeting and audience parameters.

CRMs such as hubspot use tracking templates to track and report ad details within your HubSpot account. Click fraud monitoring software like ClickPatrol use tracking templates to capture and screen click characteristics for click fraud.

How to find your ClickPatrol Tracking Template

1. Log on to your ClickPatrol dashboard
2. Navigate to my account
3. Click on “Tracker”; here you’ll find the tracking template
4. Copy the tracking template

Merging Tracking Templates with your ClickPatrol tracking templates

You can easily merge your ClickPatrol tracking template with your existing tracking templates. This means you could combine our tracking template with whatever tracking template you already have on your website either a CRM or another click fraud monitoring software.

There are two ways to achieve this: tracking templates that start with {lpurl}? And tracking templates that do not start with {lpurl}?.

If your current tracking template starts with {lpurl}?

For tracking templates that start with {lpurl}, then merging with the ClickPatrol template is easy. Follow the steps below:

Assuming your existing template is this: {lpurl}?utm_campaign={campaignid}&adgroupid={adgroupid}&utm_content={creative}&utm_term={keyword}

1. Copy your ClickPatrol tracking template from your dashboard it should look like this:

   https://trck-001.clckptrl.com/?uid=99548C4A-5DAC-43E3-8AD3-F841E64E60F0&adp={adposition}&lpm={loc_physical_ms}&lim={loc_interest_ms}&adi={adgroupid}&k={keyword}&n={network}&ci={campaignid}&d={device}&p={placement}&u={lpurl}

2. Remove the  {lpurl}? from your existing template and it becomes this:

   utm_campaign={campaignid}&adgroupid={adgroupid}&utm_content={creative}&utm_term={keyword}

3. Paste the remainder of your existing template to the tail of your ClickPatrol template right after the  {lpurl}. It should look like this:

   https://trck-001.clckptrl.com/?uid=99548C4A-5DAC-43E3-8AD3-F841E64E60F0&adp={adposition}&lpm={loc_physical_ms}&lim={loc_interest_ms}&adi={adgroupid}&k={keyword}&n={network}&ci={campaignid}&d={device}&p={placement}&u={lpurl}?utm_campaign={campaignid}&adgroupid={adgroupid}&utm_content={creative}&utm_term={keyword}

Please remember to use your own tracking template for this, the above is just an example.

If your current tracking template does not start with {lpurl}

For existing  tracking templates that do not start with {lpurl} such as this: https://tracker.example.com?url={escapedlpurl}, here’s how to merge them with your ClickPatrol template:

1. Copy your ClickPatrol tracking template from your dashboard it should look like this:

   https://trck-001.clckptrl.com/?uid=99548C4A-5DAC-43E3-8AD3-F841E64E60F0&adp={adposition}&lpm={loc_physical_ms}&lim={loc_interest_ms}&adi={adgroupid}&k={keyword}&n={network}&ci={campaignid}&d={device}&p={placement}&u={lpurl}

2. Remove the  {lpurl} section of your ClickPatrol template just like this:

   https://trck-001.clckptrl.com/?uid=99548C4A-5DAC-43E3-8AD3-F841E64E60F0&adp={adposition}&lpm={loc_physical_ms}&lim={loc_interest_ms}&adi={adgroupid}&k={keyword}&n={network}&ci={campaignid}&d={device}&p={placement}&u=

3. Paste your existing template at the tail of your ClickPatrol template making it look like this:

   https://trck-001.clckptrl.com/?uid=99548C4A-5DAC-43E3-8AD3-F841E64E60F0&adp={adposition}&lpm={loc_physical_ms}&lim={loc_interest_ms}&adi={adgroupid}&k={keyword}&n={network}&ci={campaignid}&d={device}&p={placement}&u= tracker.example.com?url={escapedlpurl}

Tracking templates are important to get the best out of your ads

To get more insights into your ads, and properly protect them from click fraud, ensure that tracking templates are attached to your website URL. They not only help you protect your ads, they can also be a game changer in your decision-making process. By finding the characteristics of converting clicks, you can double down on these characteristics in your ads. 

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