One of the most common issues when launching Google Ads for a custom-built website is the loss of GCLID. The first question everyone asks is, what is it?
GCLID is a special tag that captures traffic and user data from Google Ads for the Google Analytics system. It stands for Google Click ID. In Google Analytics, its content is decoded by the gtag.js script.
GCLID looks simple: a parameter is added to the end of a URL after someone visits a website.
example.com/test?gclid=test_Test
If the content after the "?" is removed, then analytics won’t receive the necessary data, and the traffic will likely be attributed to google/organic.
If the GCLID isn’t removed, you need to carefully check the following:
- all characters should remain exactly as they were, meaning underscores, upper and lower case letters, etc;
- it should function correctly on different types of pages—home page, internal pages, and others.
When should you be concerned?
🚨 If you’ve set up two-way synchronization between Google Ads and Google Analytics, launched a campaign, but in Google Analytics there are no data on ad campaigns or CPC traffic in general, or most of the traffic is marked as “not set”.
In one of our cases, a site even returned a 404 error. Luckily, we caught it in time.
In this case, the only solution is to contact the website developers, as the issue is related to server settings and the .htaccess file. A standard digital marketer won’t be able to help here; this falls within the programmer’s expertise. The best you can do is pass on the information about Google Ads’ auto-tagging feature to the developers.
Additionally, after fixing the problem, check if similar tags like fbclid (for Facebook) and UTM (standard tags) are working properly.
GCLID and UTM together
This is a frequently asked question by PPC specialists. Technically, yes, you can use both GCLID and UTM tags simultaneously. In fact, campaign settings allow you to add UTM tags, and analytics will display everything correctly. However, there’s one catch! As soon as you have any disputes with Google Ads support over the results, they will tell you that this isn’t allowed. Where is this written? Nowhere! This is due to the complexity of how Google Analytics and the gtag.js script work together.
GCLID, IOS 14+, and gBraid
In the spring of 2023, Google introduced an additional tag called "gBraid" (an alternative to GCLID) as a solution for tracking events on IOS 14+.
It’s enabled automatically when you connect the device linking tag in Tag Manager.
Order a service