Google Ads (Search, Display or YouTube Ads) as a Traffic Source

Before you start you need:

• An active Voluum account and some knowledge regarding creating a campaign funnel in Voluum. Completing the Getting Started guide is sufficient.
• An offer and a landing page.
• An active Google Ads account with correct payment details provided.

There are multiple campaign types that you can create with Google Ads. Campaign types determine where and how your ad will be promoted.

• Search: Your ad will be displayed among Google's search results.
• Display: Your ad will be displayed on websites partnered with Google in the Display network.
• Shopping: Your ad will be displayed to people already searching for a product.
• Video: Your video ad will be displayed when searching or watching a YouTube video. Note that you need to have your video ad uploaded to YouTube to use it in your ad campaign
• App: Your ad will be displayed in all Google's app-related properties: search, Play store, Display Network and other.

Using Google Ads requires you to complete three major steps.

In the first step, you need to create a campaign funnel in Voluum. This will provide you with a special link, called the direct tracking link, that you will use to direct and track your traffic in step 2. In order to do so, perform the following steps:

1. Create an offer element. Read the Add an Offer to Voluum article to learn more.
2. Create a lander element. Read the Add a Lander Element article to learn more.

3. Create a traffic source element from a template.

   1. In Voluum, go to the Traffic sources tab.

   2. Click the New traffic source button.

      

   3. There are three templates related to different Google's properties:

      • Google Search and Display
      • Google Shopping
      • YouTube

      The difference between those templates is in the tracking parameters used. In each template, they pass information specific to each campaign type.

   4. Click the Next button.

      

   5. Click the Save button.

4. Create a campaign element.

   1. In Voluum, go to the Campaigns tab.

   2. Click the Create button and select the Campaign Simple option from the drop-down menu.

      

   3. In the GENERAL tab, select the traffic source element that you have just created from the Traffic source drop-down menu.
   4. Provide a name for your campaign in the Campaign name text field.
   5. Select if you want to track costs, and if so, select a cost model and provide the cost value.
   6. Select the Private Workspace that you want this campaign to be assigned to by selecting an appropriate option from the Workspace drop-down menu.
   7. Select the lander that you have just created.
   8. Select the offer that you have just created.

   9. Click the Save button.

      

   10. In the TRACKING tab, select the tracking domain that you want to use from the Domain drop-down menu.
   11. Select the lander that you want to use from the Direct tracking URL drop-down menu.
   12. Click the Copy button next to the direct tracking URL to copy it to the clipboard and then paste it to any text editing tool.
   13. Click the Copy button next to the direct tracking script to copy it to the clipboard and then paste it to any text editing tool.

   14. Click the Done button.

       

5. Implement the direct tracking script that you have copied from Voluum on your landing page.

The second step is about creating a campaign in Google Ads. In order to create it, follow the steps below:

1. Go to your Google Ads account by:

   • Signing up for Google Ads account by clicking the following link: Welcome to Google Ads!.

     or

   • Signing in to your Google Ads account, by clicking the following link: Google Ads

2. Create a campaign with all the required budget and targeting options.

   1. In your Google Ads dashboard, click the New Campaign button.

      

   2. Select the campaign goal.

      

   3. Select a campaign type.

      

   4. Provide your landing page's URL as your business's website. Do not include any tracking parameters at this point, provide the plain URL:

   5. Click the Continue button.

      

   6. Provide all required information for the selected campaign goal and type. This information include:

      • Campaign budget.
      • Bid.
      • Targeting.
      • Keywords.
      • Ad title, images and description.
   7. Save your campaign by clicking the Save button.
   8. Once you have saved your campaign, go to this campaign's details.
   9. Go to Settings.
   10. Click the Campaign URL options.

   11. https://my_lander.com/?cpid=976d4dc5-d4d3-4881-aaf7-a9272fa3112e&gclid={gclid}&campaigid={campaignid}

       cpid=976d4dc5-d4d3-4881-aaf7-a9272fa3112e&gclid={gclid}&campaigid={campaignid}

       Paste the part of the direct tracking URL that you have copied from Voluum that starts after the ? character in the Final URL suffix text field.

       Example:

       The complete direct tracking URL that you have copied from Voluum should look like this:

       The following part of the above URL should be pasted in the Final URL suffix text field:

       

   12. Click the Save button.

Congratulations, you have successfully set up tracking of Google traffic with Voluum. Each time a visitor clicks your ad, He or she will be directed to your landing page with Voluum's tracking parameters being passed. On a landing page, the direct tracking script will launch and send an HTTP request to Voluum with information about a visit and other information passed from Google.

The following step is optional and should be performed only if you wish to pass information about conversions that have occurred back to Google. This can be done via the Automizer feature. It uses API integration to reliably pass conversion information to Google.

To learn more, go to the Google Ads Integration article.

Google uses GCLID value as its click identifier. On some occasions, this value may not be available. This may occur when an ad from Google Ads is viewed on some iOS 14.5 and up devices that have opted out from tracking. In such cases, Google passes either one of two values: GBRAID or WBRAID.

For that occasion, Voluums allows its users to pass not only external ID but also External ID type values either in a postback URL or during Conversion upload. You can use the External ID type value to specify if the value passed as External ID is WBRAID or GBRAID.

Parameter names:

• exid - this is the parameter name used for passing External ID value
• exidt - this is the parameter name used for passing External ID type (either WBRAID or GBRAID)

Voluum tokens:

• {externalid} - passes external ID
• {externalidparameter} - passes the type of external ID