Tracking URLs and templates

The link that redirects. What it issues, what it passes on, and when a platform will not let you use one.

A tracking URL is a link that goes through UTMCAP on the way to your page:

https://app.utmcap.com/CAMPAIGN_ALIAS

Opening it does three things in one hop: records the click, issues the click id, and answers 302 to the destination your campaign's paths chose, with the id on the query string.

302 → https://your-lander.example/?cid=06G873SECHWDV2V9G455CJFVKC

That cid is what the tag reads on arrival, and it is why a redirect campaign works even on a page whose tag has not loaded yet.

#A tracking template

Most platforms have a field for a template rather than a plain link — somewhere you put the tracking URL with the platform's own macros in it, so the platform substitutes the real values per click. That is where a source's macros earn their place: cost, keyword, placement, device, whatever that platform will tell you.

The campaign's Tracking tab builds it for you with the chosen source's macros already in place. Paste it rather than assembling it by hand; a macro spelled almost right substitutes nothing and records a zero.

#Your own domain

By default the tracking URL is on app.utmcap.com. You can use your own hostname instead — Domains in the app — which matters for two reasons:

Some platforms will not accept a tracking domain that differs from the display URL's domain.
A first-party hostname keeps the tag's cookies first-party, which browsers treat far better than third-party ones.

#When a redirect is not allowed

Google and Microsoft run parallel tracking: the visitor goes straight to your page while the tracking URL is fetched in the background. Nothing of ours is in the path, so there is no redirect to issue an id.

On Google this is mandatory for Search, Shopping, Display, Video and Performance Max. It is not a setting you can turn off.

Those campaigns are set up differently — with parameters on the Final URL rather than a link — and the Tracking tab shows that instead of a tracking URL. See parallel tracking.

#Passing values through

Anything on the tracking URL reaches the offer. Two placeholders are worth knowing:

Placeholder	Substituted with
`{click_id}`	This visitor's click id — put it in the offer URL so the network's postback can name the click
`{query.NAME}`	Any parameter from the incoming URL, by name — `{query.gclid}` forwards a gclid

The sub slots sub1 to sub10 are yours to fill from the platform's macros, and they are what the reports break down by.