Stop Relying on Auto-Tagging to tag your ad URLs

Author

Himanshu Sharma
November 23, 2024

💀 ☠ Pro Tip: Stop relying on auto-tagging (GCLID, DCLID) to tag your ad URLs. "Half of the time, my autotagging doesn't work. I don't know which half" - Ignorant marketer. 👇

It's a reminder that if you don't know when or why something breaks, you risk compromising the integrity of your marketing campaigns.

❝

More users are opting out of advertising cookies and using adblockers than ever.

Ad blockers and privacy tools often strip gclid/dclid parameters.

You need a fallback mechanism like manually added UTM parameters to collect source and medium attribution data if the autotagging feature is disabled because of user consent, ad blocker or privacy extension.

Tag all of your Ad URLs with UTM parameters.

You can use both autotagging and UTMs simultaneously.

By default, GA4 prioritizes auto-tagging but can fall back to UTM parameters if autotagging is unavailable.

But if you don't have the UTM fallback mechanism available, the Google ads traffic may be labelled as organic or fall under (not set).

So, UTM tagging is no longer optional in today's privacy-focused digital landscape.