The advantage of the web is that we can measure the success of different campaigns quite reliably and accurately. A simple connection of a website with Google Analytics allows us to check how many views and clicks there were. But what if we invite visitors to the same landing page from different sources and want to know from which source we got the most? We can also check this, but we need to adjust our URL a bit.
To make it easier to understand, let's use an example. You advertise your campaign on different channels – Facebook, email, Adwords, on ads with external providers... If you do not have the URL parameters set correctly, Google Analytics will only record the total number of clicks from all channels. To avoid this, we use a URL builder.
URL builder
A URL builder is a tool that allows us to add parameters to a basic URL (e.g., https://www.example.com) (e.g., https://www.example.com/?utm_source=adsite&utm_campaign=adcampaign&utm_term=adkeyword). Parameters (also called UTM tags) are all the tags that follow ?: utm_source, utm_medium, utm_content, utm_campaign
The URL builder allows us to add the following parameters to any URL:
- Campaign source (utm_source): this tag defines the source of the visit – e.g., Facebook, Google, Twitter...
- Campaign medium (utm_medium): this tag specifies the advertising medium – e.g., cpc, email, post, ad
- Campaign name (utm_name): we can name the campaign – e.g., 48hour_sale
- Campaign term (utm_term): we can tag the link with the keywords we are advertising on
- Campaign content (utm_content): a tag that is useful if we have A/B testing
Of course, we can omit any of the tags.
We simply create a URL with all the tags by entering the necessary data into the URL builder and copying the URL below. The tool is, of course, free.
A URL with tags tells us a lot about the channel through which we brought traffic to our site, with which campaign, and keyword. It is recommended for use in all marketing activities where analytical data is important to us.
Examples of campaign tagging
- Facebook: when tagging campaigns on Facebook, use the campaign term
Example: www.example.com/?utm_term=zenske_20-30_interest_fashion - Email: mark the source as email, and Google Analytics will classify the source of the visit into the Email channel (by default). Larger providers for mass email campaign sending already allow automatic tracking in Google Analytics.
Example: www.example.com/?utm_source=email&utm_campaign=07052017 (we added the date of the sent email as the campaign name) - External advertising: for the source, specify the advertiser and format – e.g., banner advertising on the 24.ur portal
Example: www.example.com/?utm_source=24ur&utm_medium=banner
The only exception is Google Adwords, which already have automatic campaign tagging and integration with Google Analytics.
Where to check results in Google Analytics?
If we have correctly set the utm_source or utm_medium tag, we check the analytical data by selecting: Acquisition/Source-Medium.
We check individual campaigns (utm_name) in: Acquisition/Campaigns/All campaigns
We monitor analytics as often as possible, as the URL builder is an excellent tool that allows us a precise overview of various performance indicators and can provide us with information during the campaign on whether the marketing activities are successful or need to be adjusted.
Author: Ana Hotko
