The success of your marketing campaigns becomes a guessing game without proper tracking and performance analysis.
Tracking all your campaigns helps to ensure that you are not misdirecting your energy, time and wasting any of your money on marketing campaigns that are not working.
Google Analytics is a powerful tool designed to provide you with vital key information that you need to keep a close watch on your marketing.
It helps you track and understand which aspects are working well and where you need to improve. However, to use Google Analytics properly in tracking your marketing campaigns, you need to ensure it’s installed and set up correctly.
UTM Parameters
Using Google Analytics for marketing is a great way to ensure success. And nothing is more effective than UTM Parameters.
Also referred to as “UTM tracking codes” they allow one to add a special tracking code to a URL. It helps in identifying how online users are landing on your site.
They are small pieces of information that you simply add to the end of a URL which gives Google more insights about your website and content through that particular link.
You can create UTM parameters in your campaigns using the convenient Google’s URL builder. With the URL builder, you can track each of your marketing efforts separately via Google Analytics.
Tracking Traffic by Source
You can, in Google Analytics, see exactly which among the marketing campaign are driving the most leads, sales, and subscribers.
The purpose of UTMs is to inform Google Analytics about the sources of your campaign traffic and how it reached your website.
When a new visitor lands on your site, Google Analytics records that particular pageview as well as the source and medium from which your visitor originated from.
In Google Analytics parlance, the “source” is defined as the domain that the visitor is coming from, and the “medium” is a categorization of the different kinds of traffic. Analytics also used a “campaign” parameter to further segment your incoming traffic.
Using Google Analytics Data
You can use Google Analytics to track traffic by source such as Organic Search, Direct Visitors, Referrals, Banner Ads, or Social.
You can use the data in identifying which among your campaign sources are winners and the ones which need a bit more tweaking.
It can also inform you about campaigns that need to be scaled down and where to spend more time creating content.
Remember that if you don’t add your own UTM parameters, you are effectively leaving yourself at the mercy of Google Analytics in terms of assigning your traffic sources.
Once your campaign URL is set-up, use it to modify or retarget your marketing campaigns. Through Google Analytics Real-Time reporting, it becomes possible to view your website’s current traffic as well as which channels are driving it.
Real-Time UTM tracking in Google Analytics reports is under Acquisition » Campaigns » All Campaigns.
Final thoughts
Remember, in marketing, the more you track your performance, the more information you get that helps you understand what’s working.
This allows you to put more energy and time towards maximizing such campaigns.
An important reason why Google Analytics is deemed to be so effective is that it works well and effectively with other Google programs such as Google Ads, YouTube, and Search Console.
