Back in February, Google announced the launch of new “Upgraded URLs” for AdWords Ads, which enable advertisers to spend less time managing tracking updates while reducing crawl and load times for their websites. They also come with new ValueTrack parameters, which provide new insights about ads.
The deadline to upgrade your URLs is July 1, and Google is reminding advertisers of that.
As Google noted in February, with old destination URLs, you have to update the entire thing whenever you want to adjust tracking, which triggers a re-review of your entire URL, and causes your ads to stop running during the process. Upgraded URLs enable you to enter the landing page portion and tracking info separately so you can update tracking at your account, campaign, or ad group without having to re-set ad stats.
In a blog post on Thursday, the company said:
We introduced Upgraded URLs in February to help you manage your landing page and tracking information separately, using the new final URL and tracking template fields. This new URL structure lets you track more insights into your ad performance, scale tracking updates across your account, and keep your ads running while making updates to your shared tracking templates.
As a reminder, all advertisers will need to use Upgraded URLs in place of destination URLs starting on July 1, 2015. If you do not use tracking parameters in your destination URLs or only use auto-tagging, you can wait for the auto-upgrade starting on July 1st.
Google recommends adding the new ValueTrack parameters to tracking templates using the advanced upgrade, keeping your ads running while you make edits to your tracking using the new shared tracking templates, and using the advanced upgrade and shared tracking templates if you make frequent tracking updates across your account.
There’s a full upgrade guide here, which will walk you through exactly what you need to do.
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