Recently I've been attempting to attribute Android app installs to specific Google Ads Campaigns. To do this, I began by tagging all my Google Ads campaigns with data about the campaign and later retrieving the installReferrer string.
I run the following campaign types: Display and App
All campaigns have a referrer parameter that gets inserted into url at click time, containing a url-encoded JSON string of the campaign's metadata (name, id, etc.).
Once I pull this data from thousands of devices, I come across several inconsistencies.
- sometimes the
referrerstring contains a query string:gclid=SOME_GCLID_HERE. - sometimes the gclid is not encoded, and sometimes it is:
gclid%3DSOME_GCLID_HERE. - sometimes the
referrerstring containssourceandmediumattributes only:utm_source=google-play&utm_medium=organic - sometimes there is just no
referrerstring at all - sometimes I get the actual
referrerstring I expected
I can't seem to find documentation on these fluctuations in behavior. What could explain all of this?
Is there any resource I can use to figure why the GCLID comes with some, but my expected string comes with others?
Also, why are some GCLIDs URL encoded and some are not?
