Acquisio to Support AdWords Upgraded URLs

Last February 9th, AdWords announced the general release of their new “upgraded URL” feature. Many Acquisio users have wondered how this important change will impact their campaigns within Acquisio, so we decide to clarify things for our users, to not only give more insight into what upgraded URLs will mean inside the Acquisio platform, but also within a more general context.

upgraded urls

Destination URLs have reached their limit

Traditional Destination URL had a good run, but it’s time for an upgrade according to AdWords. Up until the upgrade to Final URL is complete, AdWords users can manage their landing page URL and tracking parameters directly at the Destination URL field, where Destination URLs are composed of 2 components:

  1. a Landing page URL (example: www.mysite.com/catABD/product1234)
  2. tracking parameters (example: ?atrkid=V1ADW272294B5-18660952758-k-{keyword}-{creative}-{matchtype}-{network}-m{ifmobile:yes}-{adposition})

An entire Destination URL with encoding looks something like this: www.mysite.com/catABD/product1234?atrkid=V1ADW272294B5-18660952758-k-{keyword}-{creative}-{matchtype}-{network}-m{ifmobile:yes}-{adposition}

This is the way things have always been in AdWords, but it caused some issues – which is why URLs are getting an upgrade.

For example, when it came time to encode your URLs or change the tracking parameters, the destination URL needed to be entirely updated. This was a big hassle because it caused ads to stop running and go through editorial review again, and the ad stats would be reset.

AdWords didn’t permit the ad copy, display URL or destination URL of an ad to be changed without sending the ad to editorial review, because changes to any of these fields was interpreted as the creation of a new ad, read as “delete and create” actions.

Only status and mobile device preferences could be changed without forcing the ad to go back through editorial review.

What’s changing with Upgraded URLs?

With the new Upgraded URLs, encoding URLs or changing custom tracking can be applied without changing the Destination URL. The encoding parameters can be added, changed or removed while the destination URL remains the same, which eliminates much of the hassle experienced before.

On July 1, 2015, Destination URLs will disappear completely and be replaced with the following fields:

  • Final URL
  • Mobile URL
  • App Download URL
  • Tracking Template
  • Customer Parameter

In the AdWords interface, you can see the upgrade already. Next to Destination URL, the new option, Final URL is now available in AdWords.

With Upgraded URLs, updating your Tracking Template & Custom Parameters can be done separately from the landing page URL. Changes made on your tracking template at any level – except at the ad level – will no longer send your ad through the approval process and your ads will continue to run without interruption.

This upgrade allows you to set your tracking at more than just ad level. Now you can choose higher levels like campaign, account and more. Setting tracking at higher levels will offer more flexibility and avoid any interruption of your ads.

Primary benefits of using upgraded URLs

Upgraded URLs offer multiple benefits, allowing you to:

  • Save time and gain more flexibility by managing and updating tracking parameters without sending your ads through editorial review (except at the ad level).
  • Keep your data history and stats. Previously you would lose your stats or data when you changed parameters on tracking URLs. (This applies to all levels except ad level, where ads are still required to go through Google’s approval process.)
  • Reduce load times, so website landing pages load faster.
  • Gain more insight with new custom parameters and new ValueTrack parameters.

How will the transition happen?

For now, you can continue to manage Destination URLs in Acquisio, but to avoid compatibility issues, don’t select the Final URL option that is now available at AdWords until Acquisio has seamlessly upgraded.

Acquisio recommend to continue using Destination URLs

Acquisio will migrate accounts to Upgraded URLs soon.

Our product team is working closely with AdWords to re-engineer our tracking/encoding systems to take advantage of Upgraded URLs. In addition, Acquisio also plans to support the new Mobile Landing Page and Application Download URLs.

Stay tuned for more information!

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mlossowski

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