How Google Ads decides where a click goes

At the top is the account: the separate advertising workspace for one business, brand, or client.

Account keeps one advertising setup separate from another. It contains this advertiser's campaigns, user access, billing settings, some shared settings, and advertising data. That is why an agency does not mix several clients in the same account: each client has different budgets, permissions, reports, and ownership.

The main role of an account: show whose advertising this is and who owns everything below it.

Inside an account, advertising is usually split into separate jobs. A campaign puts one of those jobs into its own container: selling a product line, collecting leads, running brand traffic, targeting a specific geography, or testing a new channel.

The campaign level sets the broad frame: channel, budget, geography, schedule, bidding strategy, and optimization goal. A campaign does not describe one specific ad yet; it sets the rules for everything inside that campaign.

In plain terms, a campaign answers this: what advertising job are we running, and under which shared rules?

One campaign is often too broad to keep all ads together. Inside a campaign, an ad group separates one concrete theme or a set of closely related searches.

An ad group keeps the ads for that theme next to the conditions that make those ads relevant. In Search, those conditions are usually keywords.

This gives Google Ads a narrower place to look: for this theme or group of searches, consider ads from here, not from some other part of the campaign.

A user does not see the campaign or the ad group. They see a specific ad: the message Google Ads can show in an ad slot.

The ad turns the structure and settings into actual creative: headlines, copy, images, assets, and the ad format.

One ad group can contain several ads. Those ads can be tested against each other, and Google Ads can choose the ad that fits a specific impression best.

The short role of an ad: what exactly do we show the user.

In Search, search keywords sit inside the ad group next to the ads. They describe which search queries belong to that ad group's theme.

The user does not see or click a keyword. The user types a query into Google, for example "warm winter boots". A keyword is an advertiser setting that tells Google Ads: searches like this belong to this theme.

For example, if an ad group is built around winter boots, it may contain keywords like "winter boots", "warm boots", or "snow boots". When someone searches for "warm winter boots", Google Ads compares that query with the keywords in the ad group. The match does not have to be word-for-word; it depends on how matching is configured.

If the query matches one of the keywords, that keyword becomes the matched keyword for the impression. That means the user's query has been assigned to this ad group, and Google Ads can consider the ads in it for display.

The role of a search keyword: connect what the person searched for with the ad group's theme. It helps Google Ads understand which ads from that group fit the user's search intent.

A sitelink is an additional link that can appear with an ad. The user can click not only the main ad headline, but also that separate link.

A sitelink usually leads to a specific page: for example "Store hours", "Sale", "Contact us", or a separate category. That is why a sitelink can have its own URL and its own URL options.

Sitelinks can be attached at different levels of the account, such as account, campaign, or ad group. In this model, a sitelink is shown as a separate click path that can appear next to the ad.

The role of a sitelink: give the user an additional path from the same ad impression. If the click was on a sitelink, the click destination comes from that sitelink, not from the main ad.

A tracking template defines the URL pattern used to track the click. It does not choose the destination page; it tells Google Ads how to build a tracking URL around the Final URL that has already been selected.

The key part of the template is {lpurl}. It is not a UTM tag or an analytics parameter. It is the placeholder for the already selected Final URL: "insert the click destination here".

For example, if the selected page is https://shop.example.com/kids/snow-boots, that exact URL replaces {lpurl}.

There are other ways to insert the Final URL, such as {escapedlpurl} or {lpurl+2}, when the URL needs escaping for a redirect chain.

A template can also contain ValueTrack substitutions. These values come from the click context in Google Ads. Common examples:

{device}: m — mobile, t — tablet, c — computer.

{matchtype}: e — exact, p — phrase, b — broad, a — AI Max keywordless.

{keyword}: the keyword from the account that matched the search query. If the impression happened without a keyword, the value can be empty.

Other ValueTrack values can insert campaign, ad, network, or serving-target identifiers. Those are useful for reporting, but the important idea here is the same: the template is filled from the click context.

A template can also reference custom parameters, such as {_segment}. The placeholder sits inside the template, while the value is stored separately: the advertiser defines it ahead of time on a campaign, ad group, ad, keyword, or sitelink.

A sitelink can have its own URL options too. They matter for a click on the sitelink itself, not for a normal click on the ad headline.

The final URL suffix attaches parameters to the end of the landing page URL.

This is often where UTM tags and similar analytics parameters live. A suffix is useful when you want to add the same parameters without rewriting the Final URL itself.

A sitelink can have its own suffix for clicks on that additional link.

Custom parameters are advertiser-defined values, for example {_market}=us.

On their own, they do not add anything to the URL. Google Ads uses a custom parameter only when the selected tracking template or Final URL references it, for example when the template contains {_market}. If the selected URL inputs do not contain that placeholder, the custom parameter value does not appear in the URL.

Custom parameters can be set on campaign, ad group, ad, keyword, and sitelink. They are not set at the account level. If the same name exists on several levels, Google Ads uses the most specific value for the current click.

Auto-tagging is an account-level setting. It lets Google Ads add a click id, such as GCLID.

It is not a template and not a suffix. The advertiser does not manually write this parameter into every URL; Google Ads adds the identifier itself when auto-tagging is enabled and applies to the click.