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Destination URLs, Tracking Parameters and 301 Redirects - A Cautionary TalePosted by John on September 3, 2008 in Advanced PPC Strategies |
You learn something new every day. Period. Yes, it’s cliche. Yes, it makes me sound like my mother. But surprise, surprise, it’s true! As my headline suggests, this is a cautionary tale about the “bad things” that can happen when you combine destination URLs, tracking parameters and 301 redirects. Needless to say, I learned something new the hard way.
I began working with a new client a month or so ago and quickly realized that the visitor statistics in their Google Analytics account didn’t quite match what I was reporting in their Google, Yahoo! and MSN PPC accounts. The PPC visitors were being lumped under (organic) and (direct). My first steps were the obvious ones: turn auto-tagging on in AdWords, and apply tracking parameters to my Yahoo! and MSN destination URLs. Did this fix the problem? No.
With a little help from my Google rep, it came to my attention that 301 redirects were removing my tracking parameters! Long story short, there was a destination URL in all three PPC accounts that had been changed on the website, so it was had a 301 redirect applied. 301 redirects actually remove the GCLID tracking code for AdWords and the 3rd party tracking codes that start with ?utm_source=. Consider that my “something new” learned.
If you think this may be an issue for you, you can test this pretty easily. To test for the GCLID, enter your destination URL into your browser with the following appended at the end: ?gclid=test The GCLID should remain attached to your destination URL. If it disappears, you’re losing your tracking information. For the 3rd party tracking codes, enter your destination URL into your browser with the following appended at the end: ?utm_source=test Again, if it disappears, you’re losing your tracking info.
If you ever run into this problem yourself, there are a few options to rectify the situation. The first (and easiest) is to update your destination URLs to point to the final webpage - NO REDIRECTS. Or, if you’re a programmer, or have access to your website’s programmers - configure your server to pass the GCLID (and all) tracking parameters.
So, I’m a bit smarter now, and will forever be aware of 301 redirects. Most importantly, my data is cleared up (with one minor exception, but that’s another blog post). Has anyone else run into this quirky pitfall when tracking PPC with Analytics?
- Google Updates AdWords Display URL Policy
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- How to Troubleshoot When Tracking 3rd Party PPC through Google Analytics
September 4th, 2008 at 1:59 am
That will happen with any server side redirect, not just a 301, so a 302 etc aswell. They will simly strip away your parameters and send you to the new page.
Quick client side redirects & meta refreshes can also do the same.
September 4th, 2008 at 6:12 am
@ PPCblogger,
Thanks for the info! This furthers my point that if you even think there might be a reporting problem, TEST, TEST and TEST again.
September 4th, 2008 at 5:21 pm
The only time I’ve ever seen this happen was the first time we tried adding Google Analytics parameters to destination URLs in an Adcenter campaign. We couldn’t work out what was causing it at the time - have you heard of this happening to anyone else using Adcenter? I need to check with the client if they have any redirects but it only seems to happen coming through from Live search.
September 4th, 2008 at 8:03 pm
@ Merry,
In my situation, it happened to Google, Yahoo and MSN adCenter. I would suggest that you try testing your landing pages first ( http://www.example.com/landingpage?utm_source=test ) If the tracking parameter disappears when the page resolves, you’ve found your problem. But if the code remains attached to your URL, then the code should be passing to your site correctly.
I would also suggest that you double check your URL tracking parameters. Make sure that you are properly assigning source to MSN (or adCenter, whatever floats your boat) and that the medium is set to “CPC.”
Any one else have any suggestions for why this would happen to adCenter only?
September 5th, 2008 at 7:46 am
[...] over at PPC Hero reports an experience he had with 301 redirects. This is a lesson worth telling and retelling simply because the Google AdWords Help Center tells [...]
September 6th, 2008 at 7:07 pm
Thanks for sharing John. I definitely learned something new with this. I love unique posts!
September 8th, 2008 at 4:20 pm
Hi John,
This is great information. I’ve researched in the past on this topic to little avail. In any case, do you know if using 301 redirects will also interfere with Adwords Conversion Tracking, or are we dealing only with Analytics here?
Some of our ads include http://www. in the destination URL, some don’t. For SEO purposes, we’re talking about using a 301 redirect to make non-www. URLs always resolve to the http://www. version. As head of PPC, I want to make sure we don’t screw up our conversion tracking, etc.
Any info you could provide would be awesome. Thanks so much!
September 9th, 2008 at 9:02 am
@ Utah,
Glad you learned something (as I did!). Thanks for commenting.
@ Taylor,
I’ve reviewed Google’s documentation for Conversion Tracking, and don’t see *anything* that would suggest 301 redirects will interfere with PPC conversion tracking. Google (and all the PPC search engines) utilize cookies to track conversions, and since this is something placed on the user’s computer, your site’s 301 redirects should have no effect.
In terms of SEO, resolving duplicate content with 301 redirects is a must - so us PPC advertisers need to learn to work with and/or around those redirects! Hope that helps. Let me know if you have any more questions. : )
October 7th, 2008 at 5:53 pm
Mate,
thanks for the great post. This has helped track down a problem we were having.
mike
October 8th, 2008 at 6:10 am
@ Mike,
Not a problem! I likely would’ve been oblivious to this type of issue if it hadn’t happened to me, too. All the more reason to share my findings and solutions.
Thanks for commenting!