How-to · Updated October 11, 2026
Turn on Google Ads auto-tagging so every ad click carries its click ID
Updated October 11, 2026
15 minutes
In Google Ads, click Admin, then Account settings, open Auto-tagging, tick Tag the URL that people click through from my ad and click Save. Then load each landing page with a test gclid added and make sure it loads and keeps it. Ads keep running with auto-tagging off, so it is easy to miss.
Before you start
- Standard or Admin access to the Google Ads account. Read-only access can view campaigns but cannot edit them.
- The landing page addresses your ads send people to, copied from the ads' final URLs, so you can test each one after you save.
- Someone who can change your website's redirects, in case a page breaks or drops the click ID during the test.
Turn the setting on
- In Google Ads, click the Admin icon, then Account settings.
- Click the Auto-tagging section to see its current status.
- Tick the box next to Tag the URL that people click through from my ad. If it is already ticked, auto-tagging is on and you can go straight to the test.
- Click Save.
Google says auto-tagging is on by default for new accounts, and that creating a conversion action turns it on unless the account uses cross-account conversion tracking. An older account, or one whose conversions are tracked from a manager account, can still have it off: with cross-account conversion tracking, Google says to turn it on in each child account by hand.
Test that your pages keep the click ID
Once it is on, an ad click lands with a gclid parameter added to the address, such as example.com/?gclid=123xyz. Some iOS traffic from Google's own apps carries a wbraid or gbraid parameter instead. Google says a small percentage of websites serve an error page when an unknown parameter is added, so test each landing page.
- Paste one of your final URLs into the browser's address bar, without loading it yet.
- Add ?gclid=TeSter-123 to the end. If the address already has a question mark in it, add &gclid=TeSter-123 instead. If it has a #, put the gclid before the #.
- Load the page. It should load normally, and once it finishes the address bar should still show gclid=TeSter-123, with the capital letters unchanged.
- Repeat for every distinct landing page, above all any address that redirects, such as an old page that forwards to a new one.
If a page shows an error with the gclid added, Google's advice is to turn auto-tagging off, have your web developer allow arbitrary URL parameters, then turn it back on.
Check it worked
Reopen Admin, Account settings, Auto-tagging and confirm the box is still ticked. It is an account setting, so anyone with edit access can untick it, and ads go on serving either way.
After a day of ad clicks, if Google Analytics is on your site, open the Traffic acquisition report under Acquisition and look for google / cpc under Session source/medium. If your forms or CRM save the click ID, a lead from an ad clicked after the change should arrive with a gclid value in it.
What breaks quietly while auto-tagging is off
Nothing stops. Ads serve, clicks are charged and forms keep arriving. What goes missing is the click ID on each visit, and Google lists what depends on it: tracking conversions on all browsers, importing offline conversions such as sales recorded in a CRM, and bringing Google Ads data into Google Analytics. A lead saved without its gclid cannot be imported by its click ID. Only enhanced conversions for leads, matching on the lead's hashed email or phone, can still tie it to an ad, and only when Google finds a match.
The test page loads but the gclid is gone
A redirect is dropping it. Google's two fixes: point the ad at the address the redirect ends on, so no redirect runs, or have the server carry query parameters through the redirect. The gclid should arrive unchanged on the final page, since Google Analytics expects it there.
If the gclid survives but in lower case, a URL rewrite on the server is changing it. Google says Analytics then still files the visit as google / cpc but shows campaign, ad group and keyword as (not set), because it cannot match the click.
Saving the click ID with each lead
If a form or CRM stores the gclid so a won sale can be imported later, make sure the field holds the whole value. Google says a gclid can be up to 100 characters long, and a field that cuts it short stores an ID that matches no click. Google's own long test value is gclid=TeSter-123-ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ-abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz-0123456789-AaBbCcDdEeFfGgHhIiJjKkLl.