This article discusses the use of click tracking services, such as Doubleclick and many other (custom) solutions. How it usually works: the user is directed to the URL address of the click tracking service instead of your website, and the URL of your website is given in that URL as a parameter. The service then redirects the user to the final destination, measuring the traffic that is going through.

Note: It is important not to confuse URL tags and click tracker links. URL tags are added to ads by Facebook, and only in paid impressions. You can also add URL tags manually in the end of URLs, and they will also be there in organic impressions. Click tracker links are put in front of your landing page URL.

Using click tracking links in Regular and Automated ads campaigns

Note: This is an advanced feature in Smartly. To have this feature enabled for your ad account, please contact your Account Manager or Smartly.io Support.

After whitelisting and refreshing your browser, you will see the Custom click tracker link field in the Tracking tab. In this field you insert the beginning of the link, up until before the landing page URL. As in the example below, you can also add tags with parameters, such as ones generated by the click tracking service.

http://tracker.io/?redirect=#LINK_URL_ENCODED#

Tracker link can also be built using #LINK_URL# macro (without encoding). This allows you to e.g. add URL parameters to the end of a link, e.g. #LINK_URL#?utm_campaign=#CAMPAIGN_NAME#. Organic traffic can also be automatically tracked by setting up #LINK_URL#?utm_medium=organic as custom click tracker link and overriding that with utm_medium=paid in the Facebook URL parameters (which are only appended for paid impressions).

Note these limitations when using Click Tracker Links:

• Click tracker links can only be added to newly created posts
• This is because editing the link will always create a new post
• Thus, the feature does not work when you choose an existing post as the creative
• Due to this, when adding Custom click tracker links to existing campaigns, new posts have to be created, which means losing all the likes, comments and shares of the existing posts
• For Doubleclick Trackers, please check with your AM if you are eligible/suitable for the integration feature.

Adding Click Tracker Links to an existing campaign

1) Click Edit Campaign, go to Tracking tab
2) Check Modify the tracker link added to new posts
3) Input your Custom click tracker links in the field

4) Choose whether to have the redirect URL encoded (Required in most cases)
5) Click Update campaign
6) Clone all ads (Selecting all ads, click Pause, and then Clone ads)
7) Hooray, the cloned ads now include the Custom click tracker links!

Adding Doubleclick trackers to on-going Ads

This process has to be done for ads one-by-one.

1) Make sure you've configured your Doubleclick tracker link under Edit Campaign on Tracking tab
2) Find first existing Ad that needs Doubleclick tracker and click on Edit Creative

3) Save the creative without making any changes

4) Repeat steps 2) to 3) for any remaining ads

Using click tracking links in Dynamic Ads campaigns and Collection Ads

Example: How to set up a click tracker link in a Dynamic ads campaign

Most click tracking services require the redirect URL to be encoded, which you can do automatically in Smartly.

1) Under the Creative Templates tab, change the Link URL field from "Default URL" to "Custom Template URL"
2) Insert your base click tracker link to the Custom Template URL, such as http://clicktrack.com/myidentifier?redirect_url=
3) In place where Link URL should go, type {{product.url|urlencode}}. With this formatting, Facebook will pick the product Link URLs from your product catalog and append them in URL encoded format.

With multiple parameters example Custom Template URL could look like this:
http://clicktrack.com/cm325?id={{product.id}}&redirect_url={{product.url|urlencode}}

Example: How to set up a click tracker link in a Collection Ad

When creating a Collection creative:

1) In the Catalog Links field choose Custom Template URL
2) Insert your base click tracker link, such as
http://clicktrack.com/myidentifier?redirect_url=
3) In place where Link URL should go, type {{product.url|urlencode}}. With this formatting, Facebook will pick the product Link URLs from your product catalog and append them in URL encoded format.

With multiple parameters example Custom Template URL could look like this:
http://clicktrack.com/cm325?id={{product.id}}&redirect_url={{product.url|urlencode}}

Note: Currently, the only way to properly preview the Custom Template URL is to open the ad in Ads Manager and send a preview of it to your mobile.

Example: How to set up your Doubleclick click tracking for Dynamic ads campaign using Smartly.io s Doubleclick Integration

Using the Doubleclick Integration with Dynamic Ads Campaigns is easy. In order to use it with new campaigns, or existing ones, two selections need to be made.

1) In Campaign Settings → Tracking, Use Doubleclick Tracking needs to be selected.
2) For each of the creatives, either Enabled or Campaign Default needs to be selected.

Once these selections are saved, the Doubleclick clicktrackers generated by Smartly.io will be added to the creative automatically.

Example: How to set up your Doubleclck click tracking for Dynamic ads campaign without Smartly.io's Doubleclick Integration

Doubleclick click tracking requires the Link URL in non-encoded format. This explains how you can use Doubleclick URLs, without using Smartly.ios Doubleclick Integration.

1) Under Dynamic Creatives template editor change Link URL to Custom Template URL
2) Paste your Doubleclick click tracker to the Custom Template URL, such as https://ad.doubleclick.net/ddm/clk/012345678;012345678;p
3) Append a question mark character ? after the Doubleclick tracker
4) Under Template tags dropdown add Link field to the Template URL after the question mark