Rebuilding URLs After Adding New Tracking Parameters

Introduction

If you are not using URL redirects, or you're using the platform tracking pixel, there may be times when you want to add specific tracking parameters to your destination URLs. You can do this by adding the new parameters to the URL Parameters tab and the Custom Parameters tab of the URL Builder. For more information, read The Marin URL Builder.

How To Rebuild URLs Once Parameters Are Added (Keywords)

Follow these steps for Keywords. Once your parameters are added to the URL Builder settings, you'll need to re-traffic these URLs to append all of your destination URLs. Here's how to do it.

  1. Go to Accounts > Keywords and use the Column Selector to add the following columns: AccountCampaignGroupMatch TypeStatus, and Destination URL. 
  2. Use the filters in the lower left to filter for the appropriate publisher.
  3. Click the Export in the upper-right of the grid.
  4. Fill in any relevant details related to your report, then click Run Report
  5. Click the Reports button in the left-hand navigation and download the processed report, but do not open it directly in Microsoft Excel.
  6. Import the report as UTF-8 text by using Excel's Import from text option.
  7. Sort the data by Status and remove all of the deleted keywords, if present.
  8. In the Destination URL column, strip out all of the existing parameters leaving only the base URL. (Parameters will usually start with &mkwid).
  9. Once you've cleaned the destination URLs, save the file as Unicode text and then split it (if necessary) into files smaller than 100K rows. You can use CSV Splitter or similar to achieve this. Splitting the file in this way will make the upload process much quicker.
  10. Upload your completed files back to Marin using the bulk upload functionality at the keyword level.
  11. Go to the Activity Log to check the status of your uploaded files. Once complete, double-check that the destination URLs in the Keywords tab have been appended correctly.
  12. Finally, push all of the To be sent jobs to the publisher via the Activity Log.

How To Rebuild URLs Once Parameters Are Added (Creatives)

Follow these steps for Creatives. Once your parameters are added to the URL Builder settings, you'll need to re-traffic these URLs to append all of your destination URLs. Here's how to do it.

  1. Go to Accounts > Ads tab and use the Column Selector to add the following columns: AccountCampaignCreative ID, GroupStatus, and Destination URL.
  2. Use filters to identify the appropriate publisher.
  3. Click the Export button in the upper right of the grid.
  4. Fill in any relevant details related to your report, then click Run Report
  5. Click the Reports button in the left-hand navigation and download the processed report, but do not open it directly in Microsoft Excel.
  6. Import the report as UTF-8 text by using Excel's Import from text option.
  7. Sort the data by Status and remove all of the deleted creatives, if present.
  8. In the Destination URL column, strip out all of the existing parameters leaving only the base URL. (Parameters will usually start with &mkwid for accounts that use Marin Tracker.).
  9. Once you've cleaned the destination URLs, save the file as Unicode text and then split it (if necessary) into files smaller than 100K rows. You can use CSV Splitter or similar to achieve this. Splitting the file in this way will make the upload process much quicker.
  10. Upload your completed files back to Marin using the bulk upload functionality at the Ad level.
  11. Go to the Activity Log to check the status of your uploaded files. Once complete, double-check that the destination URLs in the Creatives tab have been appended correctly.
  12. Finally, push all of the To be sent jobs to the publisher via the Activity Log.

Written by Marketing @ Marin Software

Last published at: January 18th, 2024