Click ID Restorer power-up

Safari and Brave remove ad click identifiers like GCLID (Google Ads) and MSCLKID (Microsoft Ads) from URLs in Private mode, breaking conversion attribution for Google Ads and Microsoft Ads campaigns. The Click ID Restorer power-up automatically recovers missing click IDs by swapping custom backup query parameters with the required native ones.

Click ID Restorer is available on the Free subscription plan and higher. To check your current plan or upgrade, go to your sGTM container settings.

We need to configure a custom parameter as a backup for the original GCLID, since the browsers’ restrictions may delete the original parameter.

1. Go to your Google Ads account → Admin → Account settings → Tracking tab.

2. In the Final URL suffix field, add a custom backup parameter with the value set to {gclid}. You can use any parameter name. In this example, we use qwerty.

3. Click Save.

With this in place, every landing URL will carry both the original gclid and your custom backup parameter:

https://yourwebsite.com/?qwerty=<value>&gclid=<value>

If the browser strips gclid, the custom parameter preserves the value as a fallback:

https://yourwebsite.com/?qwerty=<gclid_value>

1. Log in to your Stape account and select your sGTM container from the dashboard.

2. Go to Power-ups and click Use next to the Click ID Restorer panel.

3. Toggle the Click ID Restorer switch to enable it.

4. Enter the custom click ID query parameter name you set in Step 1.

5. Click Save changes.

1. Open Preview in your sGTM container.

2. Click the three dots in the top right corner and select Send requests manually.

3. Copy the X-Gtm-Server-Preview HTTP header value.

4. Enable the sGTM Preview Header config power-up.

5. Paste the copied header into the Preview token field and save.

6. Open Safari in Private mode and visit your site with a backup parameter in the URL, e.g.: https://your-site.com/?qwerty=test123

7. Go back to the sGTM preview.

8. Click on the page_view event and on the fired tag.

9. Click on Outgoing HTTP Requests from Server.

10. In the Request URL you should see gclid=test123.

A sample scenario is an eCommerce store running Google Ads campaigns with Smart Bidding. A significant share of their traffic comes from Safari users browsing in Private mode. These browsers strip gclid from landing page URLs before the page loads. Without the click ID, those sessions produce unattributed conversions, and over time the bidding algorithm receives incomplete data, degrading campaign performance.

You can solve this problem by using the Click ID Restorer power-up:

1. 1.
   In Google Ads, add a backup parameter to the Final URL suffix. For example, backup_gclid={gclid}. Every ad click will now carry both gclid and backup_gclid in the landing URL.
2. 2.
   Enable the Click ID Restorer power-up in your Stape sGTM container.
3. 3.
   Enter backup_gclid as the custom click ID parameter name and save.
4. 4.
   Test by opening your website https://your-site.com/?backup_gclid=test123 in Safari private mode.
5. 5.
   In the sGTM container preview you should see an event with the gclid=test123 parameter.

If configured correctly, conversions from Safari private users are attributed to the originating ad click, Smart Bidding receives accurate data, and campaign reporting reflects the true number of conversions.