Ad tracking
Also known as: Advertising tracking
In short
The collection of information about ad delivery, interactions and subsequent actions so advertising activity can be measured and analyzed.
Connect the stages of advertising activity
Ad tracking records signals at different points: an ad is delivered, a person clicks, and an action happens later. Platforms, analytics systems and business records may each observe different parts of that sequence.
Campaign parameters describe the source of a visit. A click identifier can help connect a specific ad interaction to later measurement. A conversion event records the chosen outcome. These pieces work together, but none is a complete customer journey on its own.
Google Ads ValueTrack parameters, for example, populate supported information about an ad click in a URL. The receiving system still needs to capture and interpret those values.
Illustrative workflow
Imagine a shopper clicking a campaign link, viewing several products and completing an order. The advertising system records the click. The website measurement records supported events, and the order system records the purchase.
The team checks whether identifiers and campaign information survive redirects and whether the completed order produces the intended conversion event.
Expect differences between systems
A recorded click does not guarantee that a landing page or analytics tag loaded. Consent choices, browser restrictions and implementation errors can also limit observations. Compare definitions before treating discrepancies as lost sales. Tracking describes measured activity; attribution and incrementality analysis answer separate questions about credit and causal impact.