As this post on campaign tracking in Google Analytics shows, Google's UTM tracking codes provide an excellent way to see which of your marketing channels and content is influencing site visits, leads and sales. This week we have launched a simple tracking code generator for Google Analytics marketing source codes to make it quicker for members to generate these.
Yet, when consulting or training I find that many businesses don't fully track their inbound marketing activities, especially their content marketing where content is shared by email or social. This chart, from joint research by Smart Insights and HubSpot of content marketers in Europe also suggests room for improvement in tracking of content marketing.
You can see that fewer than half of businesses are able to track ROI or track links to content from other sites.
Within our own PDFs we always go to the trouble of marking up links from content to the site since this will show you which content is most effective at driving visits and conversions.
Here's an example tracking URL for a PDF. The tracking code follows the landing page address after the '?' so is sometimes called the 'query string'. Google Analytics automatically parses each parameter which starts with &utm so you can see the results in Acquisition, Campaigns report in Google Analytics.
http://www.domainname.com/example_landing_page?utm_source=company&utm_medium=pdf&utm_campaign=22062017&utm_term=hero_link&utm_content=tracker
By Dave Chaffey
Digital strategist Dr Dave Chaffey is co-founder and Content Director of online marketing training platform and publisher Smart Insights. 'Dr Dave' is known for his strategic, but practical, data-driven advice. He has trained and consulted with many business of all sizes in most sectors. These include large international B2B and B2C brands including 3M, BP, Barclaycard, Dell, Confused.com, HSBC, Mercedes-Benz, Microsoft, M&G Investment, Rentokil Initial, O2, Royal Canin (Mars Group) plus many smaller businesses. Dave is editor of the templates, guides and courses in our digital marketing resource library used by our Business members to plan, manage and optimize their marketing. Free members can access our free sample templates here. Dave is also keynote speaker, trainer and consultant who is author of 5 bestselling books on digital marketing including Digital Marketing Excellence and Digital Marketing: Strategy, Implementation and Practice. In 2004 he was recognised by the Chartered Institute of Marketing as one of 50 marketing ‘gurus’ worldwide who have helped shape the future of marketing. My personal site, DaveChaffey.com, lists my latest Digital marketing and E-commerce books and support materials including a digital marketing glossary. Please connect on LinkedIn to receive updates or ask me a question.
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