Google Analytics Tagging
Why is it important to track your marketing efforts in Google Analytics (or any analytics solution for that matter)?
1) The search reporting will be skewed if you do not separate SEO and PPC
2) You cannot see the full effects of your marketing efforts, whether using email, newsletters, banners, text ads, videos or some other online medium
3) Tracking elements in Google Analytics is a “no brainer” if you are paying for placements in order to quantify their true value to your bottom line
If you track these efforts you can pull great performance data into campaign reports, then utilize for future enhancements or to shift budgets to areas that show greater returns.
In order to track in Google Analytics you must append the tracking URL with the Google Analytics UTM codes.
For example: http://www.expertsem.com/?utm_source=march_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=company_services
To begin, you can do one of two things: 1. direct to the following URL, Google Analytics URL Builder (I would suggest you bookmark this resource); or 2. make use of excel formulas to append the URLs, then find and replace if you require more complex tracking like adding keywords to each URL.
Remember to use clear naming conventions so that analyzing reports is simple, and break out per source (e.g., Yahoo, MSN, Facebook, etc.) Keep in mind sort functionality when designating naming conventions. For example, if you send out four newsletters a year, make sure they are all similar in naming conventions, this way you can use the sort functionality in the Google Analytics interface to compare all of the newsletters.
Google Analytics Tracking URL’s need to include source, medium and campaign name. The elements for term and content are not compulsory entries.
In order for PPC and SEO to report separately you need to use medium=cpc in the tracking code if you use something like medium=search it will not populate under “paid” in reporting. If this is not implemented then any traffic generated from paid search will show through as organic and skew the organic results.
Always double check the URLs prior to implementation. The page you direct the search to needs to show the web analytics code in the browser address bar. If it does not, it will not record in Google Analytics.
Feel free to comment on this blog post with any additional tips or comments you have for our readers.
~SammieAnnie
on March 9th, 2009 at 4:45 pm
it really surprises me that so many sites do not properly implement and utilize analytics. i’m curious as to your opionion on why adoption and effective utilization is so low? admittedly i rely on other experts for analytics implementation so I’m wondering if the technical setup is too challenging? any thoughts?
on March 9th, 2009 at 5:25 pm
Thanks for the comment Alex, honestly I feel its education in general from an analytics standpoint. Users adopt the tools, collect the data, however in most cases it’s not configured accurately and people I have spoken with do not use the data collected to make informed adjustments to the site to improve ROI. As you can see from my post it’s a real simple process to setup specifically in Google Analytics, you certainly don’t need to be a technical genius to implement this. There are elements to Google Analytics that require more advanced configuration to the code, however that is completed at initial implementation. To track elements you are paying for e.g. Yahoo!, MSN, banner buys, it is a simple two step process 1) decide which page you wish to direct to and 2) append the URL’s with Google Analytics code.
on March 12th, 2009 at 7:19 am
I was literally just learning about campaign tagging through Google Analytics’ “Conversion University!” If you are a G.A. user – you have to check out these tutorials; they are really helpful, easy to understand and provide a great resource to go back to. Campaign Tracking and AdWords Integration
on March 12th, 2009 at 7:45 am
Hi Lindsey, Thanks for shooting that URL through, great resource.