How to find which partner is behind an ad on your brandHow to find which partner is behind an ad on your brand

On Tuesday at 21:40, a search for “yourbrand discount code” shows an ad headed “Yourbrand · Extra 20% Off Today”, with yourbrand.example underneath and the code SAVE20 in its description. Yourbrand's affiliate manager has 340 publishers in her programme. Which one, if any, is this?

You can't ask the ad. Clicking it costs its advertiser money and can leave a tracking cookie in your browser that earns commission on your next order, and following its click link is the same as clicking. But an ad carries more than it seems to, and each thing it carries meets a record you already hold. This guide matches them up in the order that settles most cases soonest.

Four clues an ad carries

• The advertiser Google names. Behind the three-dot icon on a computer, or the info icon on a phone, About this advertiser gives a name and a location. The guide to reading the panel covers what each line means.
• The address it shows. The display URL's domain comes from the page a click lands on. Your own domain means the click reaches your site, directly or through a tracking link. Another domain means it lands on someone else's page first.
• What its words offer. A code, a percentage, “free delivery”, “exclusive”: anything in the headline, description or extra lines that matches an offer you gave someone.
• When and where it showed. The search exactly as typed, the date and time with the time zone, the place and the device. Click times in your network can be lined up against it.

None of these is proof on its own. A name can be a company you've never connected with a partner, a domain can be shared by several accounts, and a code can travel. Together they usually narrow it to one publisher, or to a short list your network can settle.

Matching each clue to your records

The name, against your publisher list. Search your network's publisher list for the name Google gives, and for its trading names. Many publishers trade under a brand that isn't their company name, and some run their ads through an agency, so no match isn't the end of it. Then search the name in the Ads Transparency Center with the region set to the United Kingdom: its advertiser id, AR followed by 20 digits, is firmer than the name, and its other ads can show the sites it promotes.

The address, against the sites partners registered. Most networks ask publishers to list their websites and how they promote. If the display URL is a domain, find which publisher registered it. If it's your own domain, the ad is either yours, your agency's, a reseller's, or a partner's using direct linking, and the next two clues matter more.

The offer, against the codes you issued. If you give some partners codes of their own, a code in the ad points straight at whoever holds it, and your network can confirm which publisher's sales used it. A general code shared with everyone narrows nothing, but an exclusive percentage or a gift with purchase can. A code can also travel from the partner it was given to onto other sites, so a match is a question for that partner, not an answer.

The time, against your click times. Ask your network for transactions by click time, not sale time, around each sighting, with each publisher's id, the click reference you receive and the referring address. A publisher whose clicks rise on the evenings you see the ad, with a search engine as the referrer, is worth a closer look. In GA4, Google's help says traffic from Google Ads accounts not linked to your property shows as (not set) in its Google Ads reports, so once every account of yours is linked, (not set) there on the same evenings points to someone else's account.

The match is a lead, and the sum shows why. The code and the clicks point at publisher 41207, and the name points at a company. Only your network can say whether Example Media Ltd is 41207, the agency that runs its ads, a sub-network's publisher behind it, or someone who found the code on a listing. Behind the network covers what to ask when a sub-network sits in between.

How to match an ad, step by step

1. Record the sighting before anything else: the search as typed, the date and time with the time zone, the place and device, the ad's headline, description and display URL as they read, and its position. Take a screenshot of the whole page.
2. Open About this advertiser from the ad's three-dot or info icon. Note the name, the location, whether a second name is shown as the one paying for the ads, and whether Google marks it verified. Don't click the ad.
3. Search that name, then your web address, in the Ads Transparency Center with the region set to the United Kingdom. Note the advertiser's AR id and the Last shown dates of its ads.
4. Check your own list first: your Google Ads accounts, your agency's, your resellers' and anyone else you've let advertise on your name.
5. Search your network's publisher list for the name, its trading names and the display URL's domain if it isn't yours.
6. Look up any code or exclusive offer in the ad against the codes you issued, and note which partner holds it.
7. Ask your network for transactions by click time around each sighting, with publisher ids, click references and referrers, and put them beside your sightings.
8. Send the network what you have, as a question: the sightings, the name and AR id, the code, and the publisher you think it may be. Ask for the answer in writing.

What you can't find from the outside

• The keywords the advertiser chose, and what it bid. Neither About this advertiser nor the Ads Transparency Center shows them.
• The account behind a click. A sub ID describes the click as the publisher labelled it, not the Google Ads account that ran the ad.
• The final destination, without clicking. The guide to reading an affiliate link covers links a partner gives you, never an ad's own click link.
• Whether the partner was allowed. That's in your programme terms, and in any permission given since.

The ordinary explanations

An ad you can't match to a partner straight away usually has a plain owner. Check these before you send anything.

• Your own agency, or another team at your company, under a company name you don't connect with your own.
• A reseller or marketplace seller advertising your products, which Google's policies allow and which earns no commission from your programme.
• A partner trading under a brand that isn't its company name, or running its ads through an agency of its own.
• A partner your terms allow on your name, perhaps by an agreement made before your time.
• A code that travelled: issued to one partner, listed by others, and used in an ad by someone the partner has never heard of.
• A competitor, whose ad shows its own address and earns nothing from your programme.

If a partner turns out to be advertising outside your terms, Aware, not accusing covers how to raise it, and the guide to reporting an ad covers Google's route when the network can't settle it.