Introduction

Product Group parameters and Tracking Templates can be enabled to provide comprehensive tracking of Product Listing Ads and Shopping Campaigns. 

Note: Before updating your URL Builder, we recommend reaching out to your Marin account representative for guidance. Your account representative may need to enable a few back-end features before you enable Product Group-level tracking in your Marin Client Account.

When is a Product Group template required?

In the majority of cases, a Product Group template is NOT required when using an account, campaign, or group-level tracking template. Tracking for Product Groups can be ensured by simply:

• Including the Product ID ValueTrack parameter in the tracking template 
• Applying a Product Group-level MKWID custom parameter

A Product Group-level template is needed when:

• Your URL structure differs between your product groups/shopping campaigns and your other objects
• You use keyword or creative-level tracking templates
• You use manual tagging override to track product group-level conversions using Google Analytics Autotagging

Product Group Tracking parameters

In order to track Product Listing Ads or Shopping Campaign conversions, we recommend using the following parameters:

• Product ID - {product_id} for Google, {productid} for Microsoft. This parameter can be used to track conversions to a specific product as well as the product group and creative. This will also allow you to effectively optimize Product Group bids and structure. 

Additionally, we recommend using the {_mkwid} customer parameter at the Product Group level and we recommend excluding the following parameters because they are not used for this ad type:

• Distribution - {ifsearch:s}{ifcontent:c} (Google only)
• Keyword - {keyword} for Google, {Keyword} for Microsoft
• Matchtype - {matchtype} for Google, {MatchType} or {BidMatchType} for Microsoft
• Placement - {placement} (Google only)

Tracking at the product group Level

In order to set up your Product Group-level tracking, we recommend following the instructions listed in the New URL Builder Advanced Guide, only instead of placing your Tracking Template at the account level, you will instead place it at the Product Group level. 

Note: Your account representative may need to enable a few back-end features prior to setting up Product Group-level tracking. 

Once your account representative has enabled the necessary back-end features for tracking at the Product Group level, you can set up a new Tracking Template at the Product Group level by following the instructions below.

1. From your Marin Client Account, navigate to the Admin section in the top right-hand corner.
    
2. Click on the Revenue sub-tab. 
    
3. In the left-hand navigation, select URL Builder.
    
4. From the URL Builder, click on the Action drop-down in the top-right and select New Template.
    
5. From the list of available Tracking Template levels, select Product Group.
    

   

6. From here, you can add URL parameters and custom parameters according to the instructions outlined in the New URL Builder Advanced Guide. Use the tracking parameters mentioned above in the Product Group Tracking Parameters section of this article. 
    
7. Once your new Tracking Template has been set up, click Save Template or Save & Finish.
    
8. To navigate between your existing Tracking Templates, click on the drop-down at the top of the URL Builder and select the level you wish to view or edit. 
    

   

Tracking product-level conversions

It may be useful to track the specific product that generated a conversion, in addition to the product group and creative. This will enable you to effectively optimize Product Group bids and structure.

For Google Product Group URLs, you can do this by appending product={product_id}. For Microsoft Product Group URLs, you would append product={productid}. This will allow any Google conversions to be attributed to both the Product Group and Product. For Microsoft, you would simply need to remove the underscore in the {product_id} parameter.