The 'Unique ID' Column Is Not Populating For Google Objects

What Is The Issue?

When using the Unique ID column in the grid (by adding it using the View Builder), you may encounter an issue whereby the column is not populated with data. 

What Causes The Issue?

This issue occurs because, following Google's Upgraded URLs, objects created in Google Ads will not have tracking parameters automatically appended via Autocorrect when synced to Marin.

How To Fix The Issue

If the Unique ID column is missing its value but the Unique ID can be seen in the URL, no fix is required, however, if you need the column to be populated for reporting purposes, you can edit the Unique ID column manually using a bulk upload. Additionally, you may find that you need to rebuild your URLs if you're trying to assign a different Unique ID or if the Unique ID is not populating in your URL.

In order for the platform to apply a unique ID in both the Unique ID column, and in the URL, you will need to upload a bulksheet with the following headers:

  • For keywords: Account, Campaign, Group, Keyword, Match Type, Landing Page, and Custom Parameters
  • For creatives: Creative ID, Account, Campaign, Group, Keyword, Match Type, Landing Page, and Custom Parameters

Note that in order for the platform to detect that changes are being made to the objects that require a unique ID, you will need to change something small. For example, you can add at the end of the Landing Page URL before the 

Once uploaded, objects should now have a Unique ID and a Tracking ID in the URL as expected.

How To Manually Insert A Unique ID Value For A Keyword Or Creative

If the Unique ID column is missing its value but the Unique ID can be seen in the URL, no fix is required, however, if you need the column to be populated for reporting purposes, you can edit the Unique ID column manually using a bulk upload. Additionally, you may find that you need to rebuild your URLs if you're trying to assign a different Unique ID or if the Unique ID is not populating in your URL.

Note: This process now only applies to non-Google publishers, following Upgraded URLs. For Google-specific instructions, please read our help center article

  1. Generate a report of objects that are missing the Unique ID value (including columns: Destination URLUnique ID).
  2. Open the report and remove all the report detail rows (detail rows should be Rows 1-9) so that only the column headers and values are included.
  3. Copy the Tracking ID within the Destination URL into the Unique ID column.

    Example: http://www.example.com?mwkid=abc123de&pcrid={creative}

    In this example, the Tracking ID parser settings indicate that the Tracking ID is the mkwid value (abc123de).
     
  4. Insert abc123de as the value under the Unique ID column for that object.
  5. To do this easily for many items, you can use a formula in the Unique ID column to populate it with the mkwid value in Excel.

    For example: To extract the mkwid value from the URL mentioned above, you can use the following formula:
    If the destination URL is in cell A1: =MID(A1,FIND("&pcrid",A1)-8,8)

    If all URLs have the same format, you can simply drag this formula down for all other items, e.g. row two formula would be like this: =MID(A2,FIND("&pcrid",A2)-8,8) etc.
     
  6. Re-upload this report back into the platform.

Additional Notes

  • The Custom Parameters column should be left blank.

Written by Marketing @ Marin Software

Last published at: January 18th, 2024