How to extract s.campaign variable info into Marketing Channels?

[#1]

I have a website that uses Adobe Launch for the implementation method. Therefore, I can populate the s.campaign variable with a query string parameter from the url. I have a few questions about using Google Ads Paid Search and marketing channels:

1. The default page URL in a google ad would be www.foo.com?gclid=1234. I'm planning to value track parameters to append a campaign id variable called cmpid. This variable will have the below type of syntax:

cmpid=google:paid-search:test-campaign-name

With the above setup, if I go to AA > Admin > Paid Search Detection: Query String contains 'paid-search' , search ads should get get classified as paid search channel.

How do I pass the paid search keywords that triggered the website visit?

2. How can I define more channels such as programmatic, display? In Processing rules section of AA > Admin, I am able to create a condition where IF Query string parameter of X contains Y

However, I'm unable to add an action where if X = Y , then marketing channel  = Programmatic [example]. How can I accomplish this?

3. When it comes to campaign tracking in AA, what's the best practices to use and anything that I've missed in the above?

Thanks.

[#2 · Accepted solution]

Hi adilk​,

1. Detect Paid Search traffic by applying filters like Query String contains "cmpid=" and "gclid=". Do not set the filter as contains "paid-search" as potentially this word may be a part of something else.

Pass paid search terms to a separate query string parameter by using an AdWords placeholder (check Google documentation for this). Then update the Analytics implementation to extract the value from that parameter and set it to a separate variable (e.g. eVar).

2. Use Marketing Channels and Marketing Channels Processing Rules. There is an option for "X=Y" which is called "Equal". It's also supported for Query String parameters. So you can define a channel as "cmpid=google:paid-search:test-campaign-name", for example.

3. You are on the right direction. A combination of paid search detection, tracking code implementation and marketing channels configuration are the basics that you may want to begin with.

[#3]

1. It makes sense to distinguish the traffic further, I'd set IF query string param cmpid contains "paid-search" then Paid Search and so on... Before your post you wanted to scan the ENTIRE QUERY STRING for paid-search, this could create potentially false positives.

2. Depends if other will overwrite this rule or not. If others won't overwrite it, it will apply until the defined expiration date is met (normally 30 days).

[#4]

Thanks, Andrey Osadchuk​. I'm new to AA so please bear with me.

A few follow up questions:

1. Detect Paid Search traffic by applying filters like Query String contains "cmpid=" and "gclid=". Do not set the filter as contains "paid-search" as potentially this word may be a part of something else.

I'm planning to use the same campaign naming structure across multiple channels. Example:

cmpid=google:paid-search:test-campaign-name

cmpid=facebook:social:test-campaign-name

cmpid=twitter:social:test-campaign-name

With traffic coming from multiple sources, if I were to use query string contains "cmpid" only, this would club all social and paid search channels under one, which is why I wanted to use IF cmpid contains "paid-search" Then Paid Search. Does that make sense or is there a better approach I should be using?

2. If I use hit level rule in Marketing Channel Processing Rules > Query string contains X, will this apply the channel to the entire visit?

--

I'm now clear on passing the kw parameter as a ValueTrack parameter and saving it as an eVar for session

List is here in case anybody else needs to go through it:

Set up tracking with ValueTrack parameters - Previous - Google Ads Help