Adding a target URL

Your Google Search text ad has three main components. The first is a headline, the second is a description, and the third is an URL displaying your website address.

URL targeting

URL Equals

You can target specific URLs.

Example

You want to drive more traffic to the “Clearance” page on your website, so you target the specific URL for that page. This is also a great option for excluding specific pages on your site.

URL Contains

You can target pages with URLs that contain a certain piece of text, called a token. In a URL, a token is surrounded by a limiter like “/”, “-” among others.

Example

You want to target all the services-related pages of your electronics website based on the URL string that appears when you navigate the site. If all of those URLs follow a similar pattern, like electronicsexample.com/services/, you should target everyone that contains “services.”

Note that it won’t work for URLs like electronicsexample.com/servicesmenu/, because it has the word “menu” after the targeted text. However, it will work for electronicsexample.com/services-menu/ because the “-” is a separator. Other separators include ‘:’ ‘/’ ‘?’ ‘+’ and ‘&’.

Custom label

You can use a page feed to create a list of URLs you want to target, then attach custom labels to your URLs to organize them. You can use the Custom Label targets to target or exclude these subsets of your page feed. 

Example

You want to make a campaign for digital cameras with 4-star ratings. You’ve attached a feed to your campaign and used the feed to label all your 4-star camera URLs “FOUR_STAR”. In Google Ads, you target custom labels, and enter “FOUR_STAR” as a custom label.

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Instructions to create targets

Once you’ve created a Dynamic ad group, you can add dynamic ad targets. To do so:

1. From the page menu on the left, click Dynamic ad targets.
2. Click the plus button, then click Select an ad group.
3. Choose a campaign, and then select an ad group from that campaign. 
   • To target using categories, click Categories recommended for your website, and then select the checkboxes next to any of the categories you want to use as dynamic ad targets. This targeting type is only available for domains for which Google Ads can generate categories. If your website is new to Dynamic Search Ads, it may take up to 48 hours for categories to be available in your account.
   • To target specific webpages, click Specific webpages. You can choose to target exact URLs or create rules to target webpages based on page title, category, or URL content. 
   • To target all webpages on your website, click All webpages and then select the check box next to “All webpages.”
   • If you’re targeting page feeds, you can also target a custom label. To do this, click Custom labels from the feed, enter your custom labels, and then click Add after each one. 
4. Click Save to save your dynamic ad targets.

Display URL: Definition

The webpage address that appears with your ad.

• Display URLs give people an idea of where they’ll arrive after they click an ad. The landing page that you define with a final URL tends to be more specific. For example, if your display URL is www.example.com, your final URL might be example.com/sweaters.
• For expanded text ads, your display URL consists of the domain of your final URL (and the subdomain, if you have one) and your two optional “Path” fields of up to 15 characters each.
• Google constantly makes changes to Google Ads. As a result, Google may update the domain component of your display URL.
• Your display URL may appear in your ad with a “www.” prefix in lowercase letters (even if you enter it with capitalized letters). If your URL begins with a subdomain, your display URL may include it (for example, the support in support.google.com).
• Your display URL may appear in your ad with an “http://” or “https://” prefix on Google.com, depending on the protocol scheme of the final URL.

You can add two optional path fields to his display URL. Each field can hold up to 15 characters in this optional path. This feature gives users an idea of the content they’ll see upon clicking your ad. For example: If your final URL is example[dot]com/store/us/newmountainbikes, you might want your path text to be “Mountain-Bikes” so your ad’s display URL would be example[dot]com/Mountain-Bikes.

Final URL: Definition

• The URL address of the webpage in your website that people reach after they click your ad. Also known as the “landing page“
• For each ad you create, you specify a final URL to determine the landing page where people are taken when they click your ad.
  • To create or edit a search ad, read About responsive search ads.
  • To create or edit a display ad, read About responsive display ads.
• Google’s policy is that your landing page and display URL (the webpage shown in your ad) must share the same domain.
• If you maintain separate landing pages for mobile users (like AMP pages), then enter them in the final URL for mobile field (under the “Ad URL options” section)
• If you use tracking information, enter the tracking template field. You may not use cross-domain redirects in your final URL.
• The final URL suffix field allows you to enter parameters that will be attached to the end of your landing page URL in order to track information.

How to upgrade URLs with cross-domain redirects

Add a Final URL suffix

In Google Ads, the “final URL suffix” field allows you to enter parameters that will be attached to the end of your landing page URL so that you can track information about where people go after they click your ad. A final URL suffix can be applied at the account, campaign, ad, ad group, dynamic ads target and keyword levels.

Example

Display URL: example.com

Tracking template: tracker.com/redirect={lpurl}

Final URL suffix: x=y

What happens:

• With parallel tracking: when someone clicks on your ad, he or she will be directed to https://example.com/?x=y while the tracking is processed in background. Learn more about parallel tracking.
• With traditional sequential tracking: When someone clicks on this ad, he or she will first be directed to tracker.com/redirect={lpurl} before landing on https://example.com/?x=y.

How to use the final URL suffix

Add a final URL suffix at the account level

1. Sign in to your Google Ads account.
2. Click on the Settings tab.
3. Click Account Settings.
4. Click on “Tracking Template”.
5. Enter parameters in the “Final URL suffix” field.
6. Click Save. 

Add a final URL suffix at the campaign level

1. Sign in to your Google Ads account.
2. Click on the Settings tab.
3. Click Campaign settings.
4. Click the pencil icon when it appears in the “Tracking template” column.
5. Enter the parameters in the “Final URL suffix” field.
6. Click Save.

Add a final URL suffix at the ad level

1. Sign in to your Google Ads account.
2. Click on the Ads & extensions tab.
3. Click Ads.
4. Hover over any of the ads and click the pencil icon when it appears.
5. Click Edit.
6. Expand Ad URL options (advanced).
7. Enter parameters in the “Final URL suffix” field.

Add a final URL suffix at the ad group, dynamic ads target or keyword level

1. Sign in to your Google Ads account.
2. Click on the Ad groups, dynamic ad targets or keywords tab.
3. Click the pencil icon when it appears in the “Tracking template” column.
4. Enter parameters in the “Final URL suffix” field.
5. Click Save. 

Add a final URL suffix at the sitelink level

1. Sign into your {0}Google Ads account{/0}.
2. Click on the Ads & extensions tab.
3. Click Extensions.
4. Click on the “Extension type” link and select Sitelink extension.
5. Hover over any of the extensions and click the pencil icon when it appears.
6. Expand Sitelink URL Options (advanced).
7. Enter the parameters in the “Final URL suffix” field.
8. Click Save. 

About targets for Dynamic Search Ads – Google Ads Help

Create targets for Dynamic Search Ads – Google Ads Help