What is a GCLID, the click ID that Google Ads auto-tagging adds?

Auto-tagging is one checkbox on the account, and Google turns it on by default for new accounts. Google’s page adds that creating “a new key event action” turns it on too, unless the account uses cross-account conversion tracking: then you turn it on in each child account yourself. To see or change it:

1. 01Go to Admin › Account settings.
2. 02Open the Auto-tagging section. It shows whether auto-tagging is on.
3. 03Check the box Tag the URL that people click through from my ad to turn it on, and select Save.

Test your site before you check that box on an account that has run without it. The test is two sections down. Google also notes that App campaigns don’t respect auto-tagging.

Google lists what auto-tagging is needed for, and each is something you may have set up:

• Website conversions on all browsers. Your Google tag reads the GCLID from the landing page’s address and keeps the click’s details in first-party cookies on your own domain, where the conversion tag finds them later. Google says some browsers require auto-tagging to track conversions.
• Importing Google Analytics key events. Before you create a Google Ads conversion from a Google Analytics key event, Google says you must link the two accounts and enable auto-tagging.
• Importing offline conversions. A sale closed by phone or in a showroom is matched to its click by the GCLID your form stored with the lead. With auto-tagging off, there is no GCLID to store.
• Enhanced conversions for leads. Google’s setup page says to make sure auto-tagging is enabled, and its overview says to include GCLIDs with what you upload whenever possible.
• Google Ads data in Google Analytics. Campaign and cost data in Analytics reports, and Analytics’ engagement metrics in Google Ads, both rely on it.

Which of these you’d lose depends on how each of your conversion actions records. To read them:

1. 01Go to Goals › Conversions › Summary.
2. 02Hover over each conversion action and read its Conversion source: a tag on your website, an import from Google Analytics, or an offline import, whose source reads Import from clicks.
3. 03Read whether each is Primary or Secondary. Primary actions are the ones in the Conversions column, which bidding uses.

Google says a small percentage of websites don’t allow URL parameters they don’t expect and serve an error page, and that a site with redirects has to pass the GCLID on to the final landing page. Its test takes a browser and a made-up value:

1. 01Open a new tab in Chrome, then Developer Tools from Chrome’s menu (More tools › Developer Tools) and its Network tab. Open it before the page loads.
2. 02Paste your ad’s final URL into the address bar and add ?gclid=TeSter-123 to the end. Write &gclid=TeSter-123 where the address already has a ?, and put it before the # where there is one.
3. 03Load the page. It should open as it always does, with the parameter still in the address bar once the page has finished loading, capitals and hyphen as you typed them.
4. 04If the parameter is gone, find the first requests in the Network tab with a status of 301 or 302. Each is a redirect, and its Location response header says where the browser was sent. A chain can have several legs, so read each until you find the one that drops it.

What to do with what you find:

• An error page. Keep auto-tagging off, and ask your web developer to allow arbitrary URL parameters before it goes on.
• A redirect that drops it. Change the ad’s final URL to the address the redirect ends at, or have the server carry query parameters through the redirect.
• A click tracker, or a server-side redirect of your own. Google says each has to pass the GCLID on to your landing page.
• Capitals lowered, or a value cut short. Have the server leave the address as it arrives. Google’s page gives a 100-character value to repeat the test with.
• A tag inside an iframe. A frame can’t read the address of the page around it, so the tag goes on the page itself.
• A sale on another domain. Where your conversion page is on a different domain from your landing page, Google’s domain linker passes the GCLID across.

The landing page needs your Google tag too, since the tag is what reads the GCLID and keeps it for the conversion page. Google asks for it on any page where a visitor may land after clicking an ad. The landing page guide covers a page that lacks one.

Since Apple’s App Tracking Transparency policies took effect on April 26, 2021, Google sends no GCLID for iOS 14 traffic from ads on what it calls a handful of Google apps. Other traffic still carries one. On the affected clicks no gclid is added, and Google says you may see fewer website conversions and fewer offline conversions imported from clicks.

Google introduced two parameters to measure those clicks instead:

• WBRAID. A wbraid is present when someone clicks an ad in an iOS app and is sent to your web page. Google introduced it in March 2021 to attribute those conversions to your campaigns, together with conversion modeling.
• GBRAID. A gbraid is present when someone clicks an ad on the web and is sent to your iOS app. Google adds it to landing page URLs on iOS 14.5+ clicks when auto-tagging is on, for Search, Shopping, Display and Performance Max campaigns only.

GBRAID vs GCLID comes down to what each can be traced to. A GCLID belongs to a click. Google describes GBRAID as measuring conversions “in a non-unique fashion (like Campaign ID) without linking them to individual users or events”. Like a GCLID, it’s case sensitive.

Your site has to let these through as it does a GCLID, and Google’s tags set a first-party cookie for the new parameter by default. An offline import can be keyed by a GBRAID or a WBRAID where no GCLID was captured. Google says those conversions can take up to 72 hours to process, where others typically take under 12.

Google’s page says any URL coming from a Google ad now carries two more parameters. gad_source identifies where the ad traffic came from, such as Google Search or the Display Network. You can’t customize it, and it’s the same for every advertiser with that source. gad_campaignid identifies the campaign. Google says both provide aggregate data about your campaigns. The same page still notes that gad_source is rolling out, so you may not see it yet.

They matter most where there is no GCLID. A Google tag captures them by itself. For an offline import, Google says to capture them from every landing page and import them with your conversions, so it can credit the right campaign when there is no click identifier. Test them as you tested the GCLID: Google’s steps add gad_source=1 to a landing page’s address and check that it’s still there once the page loads. A redirect has to keep them as well.

UTM parameters are words you write, such as utm_source=google and utm_campaign=sofas. They name a source, a medium and a campaign, in plain text. A GCLID is a value Google writes for one click, and it means nothing to a reader: Google Ads and Google Analytics look up what stands behind it.

Through a GCLID, Google Analytics gets what UTM parameters don’t carry: the Google Ads account, the ad group, the keyword’s text and the search query. Where a click has both, Google Analytics takes source, medium and its other traffic-source dimensions from auto-tagging, and keeps your utm_content and utm_term for its Manual ad content and Manual term dimensions. Google Analytics 4 has no setting that puts your UTM values first.

UTM parameters are still worth keeping. Where Google Analytics can’t use the GCLID and the address carries any UTM parameter, it takes every traffic-source dimension from the UTM parameters alone. So Google recommends setting the whole set together, utm_source, utm_medium, utm_campaign, utm_id and utm_source_platform, since a missing one shows as (not set). The tracking templates guide shows where they go.

An offline conversion import credits a sale that happened away from your site to the click that started it. Google’s setup asks four things of you:

1. 01Add a hidden field for the GCLID to every lead form on your site.
2. 02Add a script to every page, not only your landing pages, that reads the gclid from the address, keeps it in a cookie or local storage, and fills the hidden field. Google publishes one, and it keeps the value for 90 days.
3. 03Store the GCLID with the lead in your own system, exactly as it arrived, capitals included.
4. 04When the lead becomes a sale, give the GCLID back to Google Ads with the kind of conversion it was and when it happened.

Google’s page on import errors gives the limits:

• 90 days. In Google’s words, “We only keep the GCLID for 90 days.” For a sale that closes later, it suggests importing an earlier step that falls inside the 90. The conversion also has to fall within the action’s click-through conversion window, which starts at 30 days and can be set from 1 to 90, depending on the source.
• 6 hours. A click less than 6 hours old is too recent to import against. After creating a new conversion action, Google says to wait 4 to 6 hours before uploading to it.

Google now recommends enhanced conversions for leads over an import by GCLID alone: your tag sends a hashed email address or phone number from the form, and the import matches on that as well. Storing a click identifier in a cookie is also something Google says to check against your local rules on cookie consent.

Every day Goldbeater reads whether auto-tagging is on, and each enabled conversion action’s type and whether it’s primary. It raises auto-tagging switched off where a primary action matches a conversion to a click by its ID. The finding reads high where one of them is a Google Analytics import or an offline import from clicks, and medium where website tags are all there is, since those still record on some browsers.

The finding is advice, and Goldbeater drafts no change for it. Turning auto-tagging on puts a click ID on every click in the account at once, and whether your site accepts one is what the test above shows. So the finding gives the test first, then the setting.

That is the table above: its 4 primary actions, the imports first, with Store locator view left out because bidding doesn’t count it. The advice ends on UTM parameters because one of Cedar & Pine’s campaigns sets them in its final URL suffix. The same reading raises that suffix as a finding of its own, {_campaign} in the final URL suffix of Sofas — Phrase arrives empty on 6 of its 9 ads, which the tracking templates guide shows.

The check raises a third thing: a click ID written into a final URL. A gclid, srsltid or fbclid copied in with an address means every click on that ad, keyword or asset group arrives carrying one old click’s ID. It reads low, and the finding gives the address with the parameter taken out.

Three more checks read what a click ID depends on:

• An import that stopped, or is failing. Goldbeater reads Google’s own summary of each offline import. It raises an action whose imports stopped arriving, and one whose imports are failing, with Google’s reasons: a click ID that can’t be read, say, or a click older than the action’s click-through window. The conversion tracking guide covers it.
• A final URL that redirects. Goldbeater asks for each page your ads name and raises one that answers with a redirect to another site, or a permanent one within yours. Where it can, it drafts the change that points the final URL at the address the redirect ends on. The destination guide shows that finding, for the page in the example above.
• A landing page without the Google tag. A page your ads send clicks to whose HTML carries no Google tag, on a site whose other pages carry one. It’s one of the landing page guide’s checks.

What does GCLID stand for?

Google Click Identifier, which Google also writes as Google Click ID. It’s the URL parameter auto-tagging adds to the address a person lands on after clicking your ad, and it identifies that click and its campaign.

Where do I turn on auto-tagging in Google Ads?

Select the Admin icon, then Account settings, and open the Auto-tagging section. Check the box Tag the URL that people click through from my ad, and select Save. Google turns it on by default for new accounts.

How long does a GCLID last?

For an offline import, Google says it keeps the GCLID for 90 days, and the conversion also has to fall within the conversion action’s click-through window. The script Google publishes for storing a GCLID on your site keeps it for 90 days too.

Should I use UTM parameters or auto-tagging?

Both. Auto-tagging is what Google Ads conversion tracking, Google Analytics imports and offline imports need. UTM parameters serve everything else that reads the address. Where a click has both, Google Analytics takes source and medium from auto-tagging, and Google Analytics 4 has no setting that puts your UTM values first.

Why is there no gclid on some of my clicks?

Auto-tagging may be off, or a redirect or a click tracker may have dropped the parameter on the way. A third cause is iOS: since April 26, 2021 Google sends no GCLID for iOS 14 traffic from ads on a handful of its apps, and those clicks carry a wbraid or gbraid parameter instead.

Does a consent banner block the GCLID?

It changes what your tags may do with it. Under Google’s consent mode, when a visitor denies ad storage the click’s details aren’t stored on your site. Google’s tag still sends the page’s full address, click identifier included, unless you turn on its ads data redaction setting. A URL passthrough setting carries the gclid through your site’s own links in place of a cookie.

Can I look up a GCLID in Google Ads?

Through the Google Ads API. Its click view reports each click’s GCLID, and a query has to be limited to one day, for dates back to 90 days.