Recover blocked click IDs

Why it matters

When someone clicks your Google ad, Google adds a gclid to the landing URL — a unique ID that later lets the conversion be matched back to that exact click. Microsoft Ads does the same with msclkid.

Safari and Brave treat these IDs as trackers. In private browsing (and increasingly beyond it) they delete the ID from the URL before your page loads. The visitor still arrives, still buys — but with no click ID, the sale can’t be credited to the ad. Your campaigns look worse than they are, and Smart Bidding learns from incomplete data.

How it works

Browsers strip the names they know — gclid is on the list, pb_gclid is not. So you tell your ad account to add a second copy of the click ID under that name. AdsPing’s script reads it and treats it exactly like the original.

• If the real gclid made it through, it is used — the backup copy never overrides it.
• If the browser deleted it, the pb_gclid copy fills the gap, and the conversion is credited normally.
• Nothing to turn on in AdsPing — every pixel understands pb_gclid and pb_msclkid out of the box, on every plan.

Set up in Google Ads

1. In Google Ads, go to Admin → Account settings (or Settings → Account settings in the older layout) and open Tracking.
2. In Final URL suffix, enter:
   pb_gclid={gclid}
3. Already have a suffix there? Keep it and join the two with &, for example: utm_source=google&pb_gclid={gclid}
4. Save. It applies to every campaign in the account.

Set up in Microsoft Ads

1. In Microsoft Advertising, open Settings → Account level options.
2. In Final URL suffix, enter:
   pb_msclkid={msclkid}
3. As with Google, join an existing suffix with &.

Check it’s working

1. Click one of your own ads (or open a landing URL and add ?pb_gclid=test123 by hand) in a Safari private window.
2. Browse to any page and trigger an event — a pageview is enough.
3. In your pixel’s Recent Events, open the event and look for gclid in its details. If it’s there, recovery worked.