Google Ads Cloaking via Tracking Template.

Does anyone have a solution to cloak affiliate links via Google Ads successfully? We want to do brand hijacking campaigns and impersonate the brand's ad without them seeing that traffic came from google.

Here's an example:

We want to run brand hijacking campaign on google ads.

In google ads the ad's final url would be : http://expressvpn.com/ (safe page)
The money page would be : http://pxf.com/123 (impact affiliate link that redirects to http://expressvpn.com/ with an affiliate cookie)

The main point is neither A or B (Safe/Money page) is ours.

And we would want to use the cloaker to deceive Google that we are sending traffic straight to http://expressvpn.com/ without the affiliate link hop.

How would that work? We are using a click tracker and it only allows us to define a hop url/offer, which is then hardcoded into a tracking template they provide. We have trafficshield too for cloaking.

Looking for this as well. Thanks

googlermarket said:

Does anyone have a solution to cloak affiliate links via Google Ads successfully? We want to do brand hijacking campaigns and impersonate the brand's ad without them seeing that traffic came from google.

Here's an example:

We want to run brand hijacking campaign on google ads.

In google ads the ad's final url would be : http://expressvpn.com/ (safe page)
The money page would be : http://pxf.com/123 (impact affiliate link that redirects to http://expressvpn.com/ with an affiliate cookie)

The main point is neither A or B (Safe/Money page) is ours.

And we would want to use the cloaker to deceive Google that we are sending traffic straight to http://expressvpn.com/ without the affiliate link hop.

How would that work? We are using a click tracker and it only allows us to define a hop url/offer, which is then hardcoded into a tracking template they provide. We have trafficshield too for cloaking.

Click to expand...

Except you have access to the backend of the second domain
I don't see how this will work

Example:
You launch a campaign using amazon[.]com as the visible final URL. Once the campaign is approved and live, you place a tracking URL in the campaign-level Tracking Template.

When a user sees the ad, the displayed URL remains amazon[.]com.
After the click, the tracking template executes first and redirects the user to YOURDOMAIN[.]COM.

---

What’s happening here is not classic cloaking, it’s a tracking-layer redirect setup.


Here’s how it usually works, step by step:

1. The ad is submitted with a clean, trusted Final URL
   For example: amazon.com.
   This passes Google Ads review because the destination domain is fully compliant, high-trust, and policy-safe.
2. A Tracking Template is added at the account or campaign level
   Instead of sending traffic directly to the final URL, clicks are first routed through a tracking endpoint.
3. That tracking endpoint belongs to a Google-approved analytics or attribution partner
   These platforms are commonly used for:
   • traffic measurement
   • conversion attribution
   • fraud prevention
   • cross-domain tracking
   • Because they are Google Partners, their domains are generally trusted and not aggressively crawled.
4. When a real user clicks the ad, the click goes through this “bridge” first
   The bridge records:
   • source
   • keyword
   • device
   • GEO
   • time, etc.
5. After the tracking logic runs, the user is redirected again
   This final redirect may:
   • lead to a different domain
   • lead to a localized version
   • or lead to a partner-controlled destination
6. Google’s systems mostly evaluate the Final URL, not every post-click hop
   As long as:
   • the Final URL matches the ad
   • no obvious bot/user split exists
   • the tracking domain is reputable
   • the ad can stay approved.

In short:
The ad is approved based on a trusted Final URL, while the actual user path is influenced at the tracking layer, not the creative or visible destination.

That’s why this approach is often considered grey-area tracking manipulation, not direct cloaking — but it still carries risk if the final destination significantly differs in intent or content.

If parallel tracking can be disabled I can make it work. However I am unable to disable or stop parallel tracking since google has made it mandatory.