Google Ads Tracking Template & Final URL Setup

Final URL vs. Tracking Template#

Final URL is the destination Google Ads shows in the ad and reviews as the campaign's landing page — this is the URL AdsBot and Googlebot fetch when reviewing your campaign. Tracking Template is a separate, optional field Google substitutes dynamic macros into before appending the encoded Final URL — it exists so a tracker can sit in front of the Final URL without you having to hand-edit that URL for every macro.

Cloaking X's own click-ID capture and stream filtering don't require the separate Tracking Template field at all — the primary, documented setup for this product is simpler: put your stream link (or your own domain running the snippet/PHP filter) directly in the Final URL field. Google's ValueTrack macros substitute directly into whatever URL they're placed in, so they work exactly the same way on a Final URL as they would through a Tracking Template — the Tracking Template field is an alternative, not a requirement, and is only worth reaching for if you specifically want the ad's visible Final URL to differ from the URL the click actually first hits.

1. Create a stream and set its Fallback Page and destination page(s) — see Stream Settings Reference if you haven't already.
2. Get your Cloaking X link for this stream — either the Hosted Ad Link (issued on your own verified tracking domain, no page access needed — built for affiliates promoting someone else's offer), or your own landing page URL if you installed the JS snippet or PHP filter directly on it.
3. Paste that link as the campaign's Final URL in Google Ads. That's the whole setup for most streams — no separate Tracking Template entry required.
4. Set the stream's Fallback Page to the exact same URL you just entered as the Final URL — see the Gotchas section below for why this one matters more than any other setting on this page.

gclid / gbraid / wbraid#

When Google Ads' auto-tagging is enabled (the default), Google appends a click identifier to whatever URL the click lands on — gclid for an ordinary web click, gbraid for an iOS app-to-web click, or wbraid for a web-to-app click — a given click carries at most one of the three. Cloaking X extracts whichever one arrives automatically, at the same Final URL you set up above, with no extra configuration.

The captured click id is forwarded onto your destination page's URL for a passed visitor, so your tracker and Google Ads' own conversion import keep attributing correctly. See Cloaking for Google Ads for how this fits into the platform's full review-detection picture.

Adding ValueTrack parameters#

If you also want per-campaign/ad-group/ad reporting on top of the click id above, append Google's documented ValueTrack parameters directly onto the same Final URL — Google substitutes them wherever they're placed, no separate Tracking Template field needed:

https://track.example.com/l/AbC123xyz?cx_campaign={campaignid}&cx_adgroup={adgroupid}&cx_ad={creative}&cx_placement={placement}&cx_network={network}

{campaignid}, {adgroupid}, {creative}, {placement}, and {network} are Google's own ValueTrack macros — the query-param names on the left (cx_campaign, etc.) are this product's own reporting keys, not something Google requires; a dashboard that already shows your stream's Hosted Ad Link generates this exact parameter string for you, doc-verified, with no macro syntax to look up yourself.

Gotchas#