Google Ads Parallel Tracking

Setting Up Parallel Tracking in ThriveTracker 

Enabling Google’s Auto Tagging Feature

In order to enable parallel tracking within Thrive, you’ll first need to make some adjustments on the Google Ads end. In your Google accounts, you’ll need to enable Google’s Auto tagging feature, which applies Google’s gclid parameter to both tracking and final URLs. 

To enable, go to:

All campaigns, then your Account Settings tab, then select the radio box in the Auto Tagging section.

Turning on Google’s Parallel Tracking

While still in your Google Ads account, the next step is to enable your parallel tracking. While you do have the option to set up a tracking URL across your entire account, this one-size-fits-all option is probably not your best bet. More likely than not, your tracking URL will need to use different parameters for every landing page or direct linked offer.

Setting Up Your Tracking URL with ThriveTracker and Google Ads

Once auto-tagging and parallel tracking are enabled in Google Ads, you can set up your tracking URL for your campaign or ads group in ThriveTracker. If you are using one landing page within your campaign, then you can set up parallel tracking on the Campaign level. All campaigns with multiple landing pages will have to have parallel tracking set up on the Ads Group level.

In your account, navigate to your Traffic Sources tab, then choose Add New Source. In this section, you’ll need to make sure you’ve added Google Ads gclid as an external ID in your traffic source.

Next, you’ll want to retrieve the “Parallel Tracking URL” from the campaign(s) you need to set up parallel tracking on. This can be found under your campaign’s general overview page.

Once you’ve copied your Parallel Tracking URL, go back to your Google Ads and add it as a tracking template either under the Campaign or Ad URL option. Google requires that a passing {lpurl} is used, so you will need to add it as url={lpurl} within the Parallel Tracking URL you just copied from your Thrive account.

You’ll also want to make sure you add a landing page id to your tracking url as lpid=(_lpid), as well as the custom parameter _lpid and it’s value. You also have the option to use a direct linked offer, in replace of, or in conjunction with, a landing page id by adding oid={_oid} to your Custom Parameters list, along with it’s value.

For users who want to force a click to go to a specific landing page and offer combination, without relying on Thrive’s rotation rules to do so, they can choose to use both lpid and oid in Google Ads.    

The id’s for landing pages and offers can be found within your campaign’s rotation, just click the Edit icon next to the landing page or offer, and its ID will be visible in the title of the dialog window.

Testing Your Tracking

Once you’ve set up your parallel tracking in both Google Ads and ThriveTracker, you can test your tracking. In Google Ads, under “Test tracking setup”, you’ll click the TEST button to ensure all checks have passed. If all statuses are greenlighted, you’re ready to move on to the last step.

Copy your new landing page pixel code into your landing page and set the parallel tracking value to true, which is signified with - var parallelTracking = true.

It is recommended that you apply your landing page id to the landing page pixel. To do this, you’ll edit the landingid parameter like the following example:

var cookielessTracking = true;
var parallelTracking = true;

var landingId = '16039';
var forcedOfferId = '';
var subIdToken = 'sxid';

With these steps completed, you’ll be ready to use your campaign with Google’s parallel tracking enabled.

Please feel free to contact our support team for any help you need implementing parallel tracking into your campaigns.