Does Google AdWords support automatically appending a different query string to a campaign's destination URLs for ads and sitelinks?

Question

I have an existing Google ad campaign that geotargets a particular region. The destination URL of all the ads and sitelinks have the same query string appended to it ("area=astoria").

I now need to copy this campaign to 50 other campaigns, each of which will target a different region. Each campaign will have a different value for the area key, so for instance one campaign might use "area=manhattan" and another "area=bronx".

The campaign I'm cloning has many ads and sitelinks, all of which need to have the query string changed. I know how to manually change the destination urls, but it's an enormous amount of busy work...

As a workaround, is there a way to automatically append a different query string to all the destination URLs for ads and sitelinks in a particular campaign in Google AdWords?

Answer 1

To answer my own question, the answer is to use a Tracking Template on the Campaign level.

To do this, click into the Campaign you want to edit and click on the Settings tab. Then open the "Campaign URL options (advanced)" section and change the Tracking URL to something like this:

{lpurl}?area=whatever

You can click the TEST button to make sure your ads work. Your sitelinks should also have the same query string appended to it. (Note that a Campaign-level Tracking Template can be overridden at the Adgroup-, Ad-, or Sitelink-level, so those more specific Tracking Templates would have to not be used for a Campaign-level Tracking Template to be used.)