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Identify affiliate IDs in ad destinations

Tell Ads Lighthouse which URL parameter your affiliate links use, name your partners, and see which IDs appear behind ads.

Updated

Many affiliate programs add a partner ID to the landing page URL, for example ?affiliate_id=Partner42. When you tell Ads Lighthouse the parameter name, it reads that value from the destination of every saved Google ad in your project.

Set up affiliate identification

  1. Open Project settings and go to Affiliate identification.
  2. In Affiliate query parameter, enter the parameter name only, such as affiliate_id. Names are case-sensitive.
  3. Optionally fill the Affiliate directory with each Affiliate ID and a name you recognize. Select Add affiliate for more rows.
  4. Save. Results update right away from ads you already have. No new checks are used.

Read the Affiliate IDs report

  • Each row is an ID observed in your saved Google ad URLs, with the number of observations, advertiser domains, keywords, first and last dates, and example URLs.
  • IDs that are not in your directory appear as Unknown affiliate ID, with the value kept so you can identify it later.
  • IDs match exactly, including upper and lower case: Partner42 and partner42 are different IDs.
  • Leave the parameter blank to turn identification off. Your directory stays saved.

An ID in a URL shows that the parameter was present. IDs can be copied, reused or misconfigured, so a match does not prove who placed the ad, whether a commission was paid, or that a rule was broken.

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