Advertising Analytics with anchors in URL

[chrisludwig87]

Hi,

our marketing team is currently using anchors in their search ad URLs to directly navigate people to the right section of a page. We attach two campaign parameters to the URL. A classic campaign parameter (cid) and the s_kwcid for the Advertising Analytics integration, which is maintained as a suffix at account level.

We're now experiencing no post click data for those campaigns and it seems like the integration is not able to match the parameter with the imported campaign. It's working for all others, except those using anchors.

The URLs look like this: http://www.../?cid=ABC#anchor  and GoogleAds publishes them as http://www.../?cid=ABC&s_kwcid=DEF#anchor. If I look at the tracking call it's giving me this as part of the request: s_kwcid%3DAL%DEF%23anchor, which makes me believe that the s_kwcid passing to AA includes the anchor name and is then not able to match.

Does someone know if this is true or if there could be other reasons why we don't get data?

Thanks and best regards

Christoph

[Pablo_Childe]

the problem is the order of variable inputs that then is parsed via the Advertising tool messes up encoding and as such kills some of your reporting.

2 things you need to do in this case...

#1

http://www.../?cid=ABC&s_kwcid=DEF#anchor. 

needs to be anchor first them variables:

http://www.../#anchor?cid=ABC&s_kwcid=DEF

#2

You need to QA proper CTAs from the ad it self or ad QA site...

If you do and then used the network tab to review header beacon you will see the variables populate as expected and if not then adjust.

FYI i have seen this type of ad tool problems in both Google and Facebook advertising.

GLTU

[chrisludwig87]

I was trying this as the first idea, but then it didn't scroll down to the anchor. I looked for best practices and all sources said that anchors should be at the end of the URL, as they are not "a real part" of the URL. Form what you're saying, I assume that there is no option for keeping it behind the parameter while AA would always take it as a part of it, right?

[Pablo_Childe]

The anchor should work as desired bringing user to spot on page. As in that case the tracking IDs will work as they are.

The real problem is if the URL is re parsed (which it typically caused by advertiser tools). Notice "&", "=" how they are er encoded to now be weird % symbols... this then messes up your IDs populating the analytics beacon as expected.

First off. test anchor in marketing tool does it allow you to work as expected then start adding the tracking IDs/variable and retest. Most should work but in some cases you may have to re arrange the order. AA wont use anchor unless you have some rule that looks for that in a URL. Id the Marketing tool reparses that reparsing is often what breaks analytics from capturing variables.

Also general rule (1st AA variable use "?" then as you add more in same URL use "&")