As a part of the campaign and creative approval process, partners throughout the bid chain will perform ongoing landing page scans to audit the landing pages for compliance and security purposes.

These landing page scans can sometimes create a discrepancy between "Visits" in Google Analytics and "Clicks" in AdLib. These scans can also distort the bounce rate metric in GA, as these scans are often quick page views performed by either human auditors or even bots.

These scans, while necessary for security and compliance, may not accurately represent the genuine engagement with a landing page. To overcome this challenge, we recommend adding a query parameter with a designated macro into the URL structure to allow landing page visits from the audit and scanning process to be filtered out in GA reporting.

Macros are data placeholders that will expand with campaign metadata only during a live auction and impression. During audits, macros remain unexpanded. This allows a user to easily filter out scan and audit-based traffic, in Google Analytics, ensuring that analytics and metrics reflect true user engagement.

These parameters provide information to analytics systems about the source, medium, campaign name, and other details of the traffic that led to a website.

When the macros are expanded, it is from true campaign activity. When its not expanded, it is likely a scan.

1 Define a Unique Query Parameter:

AdLib recommends using the utm_campaign parameter for this process.

2. Choose a Macro- AdLib recommends using either the Campaign Name or Campaign ID Macro.

[Campaign_ID]

[Campaign_Name]

Let's consider an example URL structure:

Here, "utm=" serves as the query parameter, and "MACRO" is a placeholder that the client can customize based on their preference or system requirements. It's crucial for clients to establish a unique naming convention for the query parameter to ensure consistency across their campaigns.

4. Communicate Internally:

Ensure all relevant stakeholders are informed about the new URL structure.

Provide documentation and guidelines for consistent implementation.

5. Monitor and Analyze:

Regularly monitor Google Analytics to ensure the Campaign name and or ID are being properly passed into the dashboard.to continue to allow for filtering.