Google Ads setup guide

Status as of 14 November 2026: our application to become a certified Google click tracker is underway. This feature is not available yet.

Availability: We have applied for Google’s click tracker certification. If our tracking domains are certified, Google Ads tracking will be available on the Fleet plan, on application. To register your interest, contact us. We review each request before enabling the tracking domains for a workspace.

Track Google Ads clicks in Ferrow by using one of our tracking links as your ad’s tracking template. Our tracking domains are transparent click trackers: they always send visitors to exactly the page in the URL, so Google can see where every ad leads.

1. Copy the tracking template

Open a link in the dashboard. Under Google Ads tracking template you’ll find:

https://frwtrk.com/c?lid=<link slug>&url={lpurl}

{lpurl} is a Google Ads ValueTrack parameter: Google replaces it with your ad’s final URL.

lid is your link’s slug: for ferw.link/spring-sale it is spring-sale. For a link on your own domain it includes the domain, for example go.yourbrand.com/spring-sale. If you change a link’s slug, update the template in Google Ads too.

2. Add it in Google Ads

1. Open the campaign, ad group or ad you want to track.
2. Go to Settings → Campaign URL options (or the ad’s Ad URL options).
3. Paste the template into Tracking template.
4. Set the Final URL to the link’s destination, or another page on the same site.
5. Click Test. Google follows the template and should reach your final URL.
6. Save.

A template set at ad level overrides the ad group, which overrides the campaign.

In Google Ads, use only the tracking template on our tracking domains, never a short link (such as ferw.link/spring-sale), as the final URL or anywhere else in the ad. Short links are for social posts, emails, print and QR codes.

3. See the clicks

Google Ads clicks appear in the link’s analytics with source Google Ads, usually within a minute, including Google’s gclid when present.

Parallel tracking

Most Google Ads campaigns use parallel tracking: the visitor goes straight to your final URL while Google calls the tracking URL in the background. That’s why our tracker responds immediately with a plain redirect and records the click without slowing anything down. Clicks are counted the same way whether the request comes from the browser or from Google in the background.

Rules the tracker follows

• It redirects only to the exact url value, with a 302. No other hops, pages, scripts or cookies.
• It never adds any parameters: the address it sends visitors to is exactly the url value. Put UTM tags and the like in your final URL or final URL suffix.
• If your final URL goes through another click tracker, that tracker must be a certified Google click tracker itself, and its URL is passed on unchanged.
• The only requests it refuses are ones without a url, and links we’ve disabled for abuse.

Troubleshooting