Passing msclkid cross domain

Question

Passing msclkid cross domain

Anonymous

Hello,

my Microsoft Advertising accounts have the confirmation page on a different domain compare to the one where the ads land.

e.g.

ad's landing page is on domain1.com, but the transaction that we use as conversion happens on domain2.com.

Both domains have UET tag implemented, therefore we are having no issues (at least not that we are aware of) on tracking conversions, but there are two things that make me think we are losing something on the conversion funnel.

When landing on domain1.com from the campaigns, the url has the msclkid parameter and on domain1.com the cookie _uetmsclkid is set.

Moving from domain1.com to domain2.com by clicking on a form the parameter mscklid gets lost and no _uetmsclkid is set on domain2.com. Obviously, at the end of the transaction, the Tag Helper states msclkid=N.

Being used to Google's tracking method and their decorate_link & form tag custom implementation, I was wondering if something similar is available for UET. Unfortunately I did not find any info. Could you please help me through this?

I think this might be really important for us for both tracking offline conversion (something we are not doing at the moment, but that it's tickling our attention) and, most important, to track as converted all the users that, after having reached domain1.com through Microsoft Advertising, will change navigation and will get back directly to domain2.com to proceed with the transaction.

Hoping to have made myself clear enough,

thank you very much,

Matteo

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Accepted answer

5 additional answers

Answer 1

Dear Madd,

thank you again, but this is not what I was meaning.

As you correctly stated, the Microsoft Advertising Click ID does not affect conversion count, it is only a way to identitify a user in order to fire an event every time (or a unique time depending on the conversion's goal setting) that SAME user reach the conversion goal:

from https://help.ads.microsoft.com/apex/index/3/en/60000:

When auto-tagging of Microsoft Click ID (MSCLKID) is enabled, Microsoft Advertising will automatically add a unique click ID to the landing page URL. This click ID will be included in all subsequent UET events fired whenever the same customer visits your page, thereby allowing you to track the conversion from this customer on your site.

Now, my question is: if I store the msclkid added to the landing page on domain1.com in order to add it AGAIN when the same user move to domain2.com, how your system is going to handle it?

Just to be clear:

Click on ad, user lands on domain1.com?msclkid=xyzwzyx. Because of the unique click ID the _uetmsclkid cookie is set on the browser for domain1.com. The user then navigate to internal pages of domain1.com and loses the msclkid from the url. When the user clicks on the Purchase button and gets to domain2.com I can add the msclkid (that I previously saved and stored) to the url and have the user landing on domain2.com?msclkid= xyzwzyx. It's here that I see the problem.

How the system will handle the fact that the same UET (domain1.com and domain2.com have the same) is receiving two times the same msclkid? It will be able to set a proper _uetmsclkid cookie on domain2.com or it will recognize some anomaly such as the Multiple-click-per-impression that I've earlier asked you about? (see: https://about.ads.microsoft.com/en-us/resources/policies/microsoft-advertising-click-measurement-description-of-methodology#3).

Thank you very much,

Matteo

Hi MatteoAtBl,

Thank you for your clarification and response!

This is a very unique situation and we can only assume how our system would handle this process. I would recommend attempting the process and from the result, determine what has taken place. I would be more than happy to evaluate and review the result with you. This information can be used for future reference should a similar issue be presented again.

Should you have any other questions or concerns, please let us know!

Sincerely,

Answer 2

Hi MatteoAtBl,

Of course, that’s what we are here for! Thank you again for your response as well.

Being that the Microsoft Advertising Click ID does not affect conversion count, multiple clicks should be the only possible effect. However, I would like to recommend that in your conversion goal set up, underneath the “Count” section as shown below, to use “Unique” count instead of “All” count. By doing so, all multiplied clicks during the action should process as one conversion.

I hope this is helpful! Please do not hesitate to ask further questions, as I am here to help!

Sincerely,

Answer 3

Hi MatteoAtBI,

Thank you for your response!

I truly understand your frustration as this is very troublesome for gauging your revenue and return on investment with Microsoft Advertising.

I would also like to apologize on my misunderstanding, as I did not confirm this issue was specific on msclkid and I assumed the topic of interest was UET and conversions only. Based on your website design, we cannot guarantee an msclkid will be carried over a redirect. Theoretically, this could be possible with certain coding, however, coding and tagging is out of our scope of support and we cannot really troubleshoot a solution on this issue. We strongly encourage you to discuss options with your web developer as they would have more information on how this can be carried out and what tools are available to complete this action.

As for the second discussion, I would like to highlight a particular sentence in my explanation:

"If you are looking to track conversions for both Domain 1 and Domain 2, the best course of action would be to have each domain with a different UET tag and each UET tag with its own conversion goal. As described on our help site, Reasons for creating more than one UET tag; It is best practice to apply one UET tag per website. I would like to note that this method does not track from Domain 1 to Domain 2, but will instead, track these individual domains separately and the conversions on both domains separately. For example, a user will click your ad with Domain 1 and put an item in the cart. This UET tag on Domain 1 will track that Domain 1 conversion. Then, the user navigates to Domain 2. The user makes the purchase on Domain 2 and therefore, the UET tag on Domain 2, tracks this Domain 2 conversion. I truly think this solution, will be the best method in your case and scenario."

To clarify, my sentence “Then, the user navigates to Domain 2.” was simply a transition sentence describing a user performing an action and not the UET tracking from Domain 1 to Domain 2. I would also like to clarify; the previous explanations were pertaining to UET tags and destination URL conversions, and not msclkid. I apologize for any confusion once again.

I hope this is understandable and a better clarification. Please let me know should you have further questions or concerns. We are here to help!

Sincerely,

Answer 4

Dear Madd,

thank you very much for your kind and swift reply.

Here's my clarification:

1 - The UET Tag Helper is testifying that the UET tag is correctly implemented on both domain1.com and domain2.com

2 - I don't see your point on "If you are looking to only track conversions on Domain 2 (...) apply the UET tag only on Domain 2. This could simply resolve the situation by having all the information, including the UET tag, conversion, and msclkid, all fire on the same domain." I need to have my ads landing on domain1.com, no matter what. If I put the UET tag only on domain2.com I don't think the mscklid will ever be fired, am I wrong?

3 - No, I do not need to track conversions on both domains for both of the actions (put item in cart & buying) happen on domain2.com. Domain1.com is only the Official Website I need the users to get to.

Now, if I get it well, there's no option to track offline conversions or peculiar surfing behaviours (as I describes earlier) with the actual UET system. Am I right?

I'll submit anyway my implementation suggestion.

Thank you,

Matteo

Hi MatteoAtBl,

Thank you for your response and clarification of the issue!

This is correct that we do not currently offer the cross-domain option you are looking for. I am happy to hear you will be submitting this idea on our Feature Suggest Forum as this would be a great feature to have implemented.

Please let me know if you have any other questions or concerns as we are here to help!

Sincerely,

Answer 5

Hi MatteoAtBl,

Thank you for reaching out to Microsoft Advertising Support!

We appreciate the details provided and a complete description of the issue as we are able to gain a better understanding of how we can troubleshoot this situation.

Based on the information provided and what I could gather, there could be several different routes for you to take. For starters, I recommend to take a look at the last drop down at the following link, Find out if my tag is working with UET Tag Helper. Should this not resolve your situation from my understanding, there are a couple other possible options.

If you are looking to only track conversions on Domain 2, which would be the simplest method, apply the UET tag only on Domain 2. This could simply resolve the situation by having all the information, including the UET tag and conversions, all fire on the same domain.

If you are looking to track conversions for both Domain 1 and Domain 2, the best course of action would be to have each domain with a different UET tag and each UET tag with its own conversion goal. As described on our help site, Reasons for creating more than one UET tag; It is best practice to apply one UET tag per website. I would like to note that this method does not track from Domain 1 to Domain 2, but will instead, track these individual domains separately and the conversions on both domains separately. For example, a user will click your ad with Domain 1 and put an item in the cart. This UET tag on Domain 1 will track that Domain 1 conversion. Then, the user navigates to Domain 2. The user makes the purchase on Domain 2 and therefore, the UET tag on Domain 2, tracks this Domain 2 conversion. I truly think this solution, will be the best method in your case and scenario.

Currently, Microsoft Advertising does not offer a simple cross domain option like decorate_link & form tag custom implementation. However, we think this feature would be an awesome addition to simplify the UET process for our advertisers. We strongly encourage you to submit this feature on our Contact Us - Microsoft Advertising. Our engineers are always looking for innovative features to help improve our platform for our users! We hope you will take some time to share this feature.

I hope the information provided is clear and helpful! Should you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to let me know. We are here to help!

Sincerely,

Answer 6

Dear Madd,

thank you very much for your kind and swift reply.

Here's my clarification:

1 - The UET Tag Helper is testifying that the UET tag is correctly implemented on both domain1.com and domain2.com

2 - I don't see your point on "If you are looking to only track conversions on Domain 2 (...) apply the UET tag only on Domain 2. This could simply resolve the situation by having all the information, including the UET tag, conversion, and msclkid, all fire on the same domain." I need to have my ads landing on domain1.com, no matter what. If I put the UET tag only on domain2.com I don't think the mscklid will ever be fired, am I wrong?

3 - No, I do not need to track conversions on both domains for both of the actions (put item in cart & buying) happen on domain2.com. Domain1.com is only the Official Website I need the users to get to.

Now, if I get it well, there's no option to track offline conversions or peculiar surfing behaviours (as I describes earlier) with the actual UET system. Am I right?

I'll submit anyway my implementation suggestion.

Thank you,

Matteo

Answer 7

Dear Madd,

this is really unfortunate because it's actually restricting very, very much the scope of our campaigns and frustrating our efforts to mantain a sustainable ROAS.

I was wondering to use our first party systems to re-append the msclkid to the domain2.com destination url when a user will move from domain1.com to proceed with the purchase. Before doing that, though, I'd like to know how the Microsoft Advertising Platform will react receiving two times the same msclkid. I'm guessing we could experience a discarded click for Multiple-click-per-impression as described here: https://about.ads.microsoft.com/en-us/resources/policies/microsoft-advertising-click-measurement-description-of-methodology#3. If that will happen, no point to proceed further with this implementation.

While you think about this, there's still something that is not clear to me in your previous explanation:

"If you are looking to track conversions for both Domain 1 and Domain 2, the best course of action would be to have each domain with a different UET tag and each UET tag with its own conversion goal. As described on our help site, Reasons for creating more than one UET tag; It is best practice to apply one UET tag per website. I would like to note that this method does not track from Domain 1 to Domain 2, but will instead, track these individual domains separately and the conversions on both domains separately. For example, a user will click your ad with Domain 1 and put an item in the cart. This UET tag on Domain 1 will track that Domain 1 conversion. Then, the user navigates to Domain 2. The user makes the purchase on Domain 2 and therefore, the UET tag on Domain 2, tracks this Domain 2 conversion. I truly think this solution, will be the best method in your case and scenario."

In the part I've highlighted lays the point. How the UET on domain2.com will know that the user has previously clicked on an ad? UET tag on domain1.com received the msclkid from the ad, set the _uetmsclkid on the browser and will therefore be able to track a conversion, but how UET tag on domain2.com will be able to do the same? Nothing is telling the UET that I've clicked on an ad. I could be a standard visitor that reached the checkout page through organic navigation and in this case no conversions should be tracked. Do you see what I mean?

Thank you very much,

Matteo

Answer 8

Hello Madd,

thank you again for you reply!

In my previous mail I was implying that I've already discussed the matter with our developers and we'd have no problem in storing & re-append the msclkid to the domain2.com destination url when a user will move from domain1.com to proceed with the purchase.

Before doing that, though, we need to know how the Microsoft Advertising Platform will react receiving two times, from two domains (even if on the same UET) the same msclkid value.

I'm guessing we could experience a discarded click for Multiple-click-per-impression as described here: https://about.ads.microsoft.com/en-us/resources/policies/microsoft-advertising-click-measurement-description-of-methodology#3. Do you confirm or deny it?

Thank you very much,

Matteo

Answer 9

Dear Madd,

thank you again, but this is not what I was meaning.

As you correctly stated, the Microsoft Advertising Click ID does not affect conversion count, it is only a way to identitify a user in order to fire an event every time (or a unique time depending on the conversion's goal setting) that SAME user reach the conversion goal:

from https://help.ads.microsoft.com/apex/index/3/en/60000:

When auto-tagging of Microsoft Click ID (MSCLKID) is enabled, Microsoft Advertising will automatically add a unique click ID to the landing page URL. This click ID will be included in all subsequent UET events fired whenever the same customer visits your page, thereby allowing you to track the conversion from this customer on your site.

Now, my question is: if I store the msclkid added to the landing page on domain1.com in order to add it AGAIN when the same user move to domain2.com, how your system is going to handle it?

Just to be clear:

Click on ad, user lands on domain1.com?msclkid=xyzwzyx. Because of the unique click ID the _uetmsclkid cookie is set on the browser for domain1.com. The user then navigate to internal pages of domain1.com and loses the msclkid from the url. When the user clicks on the Purchase button and gets to domain2.com I can add the msclkid (that I previously saved and stored) to the url and have the user landing on domain2.com?msclkid= xyzwzyx. It's here that I see the problem.

How the system will handle the fact that the same UET (domain1.com and domain2.com have the same) is receiving two times the same msclkid? It will be able to set a proper _uetmsclkid cookie on domain2.com or it will recognize some anomaly such as the Multiple-click-per-impression that I've earlier asked you about? (see: https://about.ads.microsoft.com/en-us/resources/policies/microsoft-advertising-click-measurement-description-of-methodology#3).

Thank you very much,

Matteo

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Passing msclkid cross domain

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