Know What Works... Track Your Traffic
I'm willing to bet at least most of your emails and social posts contain at least one link to some part of your website...
I'm also willing to bet you just paste in the URL from your web browser and assume mailchimp/facebook etc will deal with the tracking...
They only sort-of do...
See, your website, like most, probably has Google Analytics installed... and Google Analytics is a very useful tool for understanding where people come from, how they interact with your site, and even lets you track their eventual conversions...
However, Google Analytics is not totally magic... It doesn't know the topic of your social media post, email or other off-site links... in other words, it can't really track what the person was consuming when they decided to click, why that was, what topic they must therefore be interested in, and what information the visitor must now know because of what they've seen and clicked on...
As a marketer, knowing exactly what a person has seen and what they're interested in is extremely valuable... you're able to present more relevant offers and content if you know this information...
There is a way for you to, with just a tiny little bit of extra effort, provide Google Analytics with this information - which Google Analytics will never forget. This will allow you to understand how that one email or social post played a role in getting visitors to ultimately buy something down the line...
This is done using "UTM Tags" ... UTM = Urchin Tracking Module... "Urchin" was the name of the software Google based Google Analytics off of... so this functionality has been baked in since day 0....
UTM Tags are just tacked on the end of your link's URL as "query string parameters."
In other words if your link is to https:// yoursite.com /some-page ... you'd just add "?tag-name=tag-value" and then "&next-tag=its-value" for each subsequent tag...
and if you're URL already has querystring parameters (already has ?something at the end) then you just use "&tag-name=tag-value" for all of the UTM tags...
so your actual link that you post would go to https:// yoursite.com /some-page?tag-name=tag-value&next-tag=its-value for example...
Creating EFFECTIVE UTM Tags for EVERY SINGLE EXTERNAL LINK can massively increase your ability to effectively target and market your materials in the future... and it's really quite simple...
There are 5 'tags' that should be included in every link....
1. UTM_SOURCE - This tag should be used to represent the BRAND that is sending you the traffic... so, if you're posting your link in a Facebook post, the UTM_SOURCE should be Facebook... if you're sending it in a Mailchimp email campaign, the UTM_SOURCE should be Mailchimp... what's really important, is that you keep this (and every other tag) 100% consistent in the way you type it... if you type "facebook" - always type "facebook" - not Facebook, not facebook.com...
2. UTM_MEDIUM - This tag should be used to represent the TYPE of traffic that this link is sending... now, I typically just brake this down into 4 categories:
- "share" - I use this term to represent any ORGANIC content - NOT paid/boosted ads
- "cpc" - I use this term to represent any PAID traffic - ads, boosted social posts, etc
- "referral" - I use this term to represent any PARTNER traffic - if you are guest blogging on a partner's site for example
- "affiliate" - I use this term to represent any affiliate traffic - traffic you may eventually pay for, but is not a direct ad
3. UTM_CAMPAIGN - This tag should represent the PRODUCT OR SERVICE you are ultimately trying to promote... even if your link is to a blog article, you probably wrote that blog article with the intent of attracting people who would be interested in a particular product or service... so enter the name of that product or service... and be 100% CONSISTENT about how you type this out...
4. UTM_TERM - This should represent the HEADLINE/SUBJECT OF THE TRAFFIC SOURCE... so if this link is in an email with the subject "Black Friday 2019 - 50% Off" ... bare in mind that in URLs you cant use spaces and special characters ... your tag value would be something like "black-friday-2019-50-percent-off" ... it's really up to you how you format this, because Google Analytics really doesn't care what the value is - you just need to be able to recognize it consistently later... but my usual rules for formatting values are:
- All lowercase
- Use dashes to replace spaces
- Spell out symbols (dollars, percent)
5. UTM_CONTENT - This should represent the unique properties of the link instance... so if you have 5 links in your email "Black Friday 2019 - 50% Off" to the same page on your site, you would identify each link instance ... if one link is on the header logo you could add the value "header-logo" .. if one link is on a picture of a red car you could add "red-car-image" .. if one link is in a CTA button in the PS you could add "ps-cta-button" ... this just helps you identify which exact link is driving the most traffic
So putting that all together, let's play out an example...
Let's say you are sending a mailchimp email campaign to your subscribers, you're promoting a superduperblender 5000 for 30% off, the subject of the email is "This product saved my mornings...", the link is to https:// yoursite.com /lp/superduperblender-5000-breakfast-promotion and you have one main call to action button in the email...
To create that link, with proper UTM Tags, you'd do something like:
https:// yoursite.com /lp/superduperblender-5000-breakfast-promotion?utm_source=mailchimp&utm_medium=share&utm_campaign=superduperblender-5000&utm_term=this-product-saved-my-mornings&utm_content=cta-button
Now when people click this link, and other links that are properly tagged like this, you'll be able to see how many people came from mailchimp campaigns... how many people looked at the SuperDuperBlender 5000... and how many people came from that particular email...
If you share this to Facebook too, you'd change utm_source to "facebook" in that link, and utm_term to be related to the social post.... and now you'd be able to see, in Google Analytics, how many people look at the SuperDuperBlender 5000 from your Facebook effort vs Mailchimp emails, etc.
If you ran several more promotions for the SuperDuperBlender 5000, not all about breakfast, even with different destination landing pages... you'd be able to see which campaigns and which sources were driving how many people to look at the SuperDuperBlender 5000.. and even see which sources led to the most sales of the SuperDuperBlender 5000, if you have conversion tracking set up.
Know where people come from... what leads to sales... and stop wasting money and time promoting what doesn't work!