What is gbraid?

Who adds it

Google Ads adds it to landing page URLs, with auto-tagging on, for clicks from iOS 14.5 and later. Google introduced it in 2021 after Apple's App Tracking Transparency rules.

What it means

The visit came from a Google ad clicked on an iPhone or iPad, where Google can't always send a gclid. It's used for aggregated conversion measurement instead of tying a click to one person.

What to do with it

Leave it in place if you run Google Ads; Google's tags read it for iOS conversion measurement. GA4 uses campaign type to assign a channel for gbraid traffic.

How Vireo shows it

Vireo doesn't store click IDs, in the free plugin or in Pro.

In the free plugin, Vireo drops the query string from page addresses, keeping only a few WordPress ones such as p and page_id, so a tagged URL counts as the same page as the untagged one. The visit is counted under the referrer it arrived with.

See Referrers and sources in the docs.

Sources

This new parameter is added to landing page URLs when auto-tagging is enabled for all iOS14.5+ clicks.

Updates to iOS 14 campaign measurement - Google Ads Help

For traffic identified with the GBRAID parameter, channels are evaluated using campaign type.

Default channel group - Analytics Help