A crucial aspect of creating successful marketing campaigns is being able to measure your success and your impact. Google Analytics is a tool that many business owners and entrepreneurs use in order to measure the success of their business and continue to grow their business and their customer base. A part of Google Analytics is the Google UTM code builder.
This builder allows you to measure all of your marketing campaigns, whether they are from social media content, ads, or email, you will be able to track their success and their traffic. Being able to track how much traffic you were receiving from each marketing campaign will allow you to fully understand which types of marketing work best for your business and your audience. This means that you will have the ability to create the most successful marketing campaigns possible for your business. In this article, you will learn what UTM codes are, how to use them, and how to build them in Google Analytics.
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What is UTM?
UTM stands for Urchin Tracking Module , and is also sometimes referred to as a “UTM parameter.” A UTM code is a portion of text that is added to the end of a URL that enables you to track visits to the URL. These could be visits inspired by your social media posts, emails, pay-per-click campaigns, and more. Essentially, it allows you to track anytime you want to know where your traffic is coming from.
UTM is useful when you’re testing which promotion methods work best and tracking the performance of certain content pieces. Using UTM regularly will allow you to see what marketing tools work best for your business and bring in the most traffic. This will ensure that your marketing works for your intended audience and you’re not wasting money on extra marketing materials that are less effective.
UTM Code Example
UTM code can seem intimidating at first, but it’s a fairly simple breakdown. It’s important to know the different parts of a UTM code and be able to identify what each part of the code means. Below is an example of a URL with UTM code.
http://yoururl.com/landingpage?utm_ campaign=socialmedia &utm_ medium=social &utm_ source=twitterspan >
Here is the breakdown of this URL:
- campaign=socialmedia – This portion of the URL identifies your campaign and organizes your analytics by placing different content in separate areas.
- medium=social – This section identifies the medium that you’re featuring this link on. For example, instead of “social”, this could be “email”.
- source=twitterspan – This section identifies the specific source where this link is featured, and this can range from Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, a sent email, etc.
How to Build UTM Codes in Google Analytics
Building UTM codes in Google Analytics is a simple process that will allow you to quickly create links that you can track where your web traffic comes from. This is an imperative step in creating successful marketing campaigns that are tailored to your target audience. Here are the steps that are involved in building UTM codes in Google Analytics.
Open Google’s Campaign URL Builder
There are three different types of tracking tags you can create in Google. Two of them help you track traffic to new apps on app marketplaces. For this situation, you will be using the Google Analytics Campaign URL Builder, which is the third option on this list.
Fill in Each Link Attribute
In the URL builder, you will see the UTM builder. This is where you will fill in the URL, campaign source, and medium information into their respective boxes. Then you will use this link in your marketing campaign.
Measure Your Success
If you already have Google Analytics set up for your site, Google will automatically track incoming campaigns. To access these measurements, click “Audience,” then “Sources,” then “Campaigns.” From there, you can click on each campaign to view the source and medium to see the metrics for each one.
Different Types of UTM Sources
UTM sources can be used in a variety of ways . This can be newsletters, banners, social media, e-books, promotions, apps, ads, marketing, and landing pages at links, as well as a variety of other marketing tools. They can be attached to social media digital marketing campaigns, keywords campaigns, and ad campaigns.
For example, a Facebook ad is an example of a UTM source social media campaign . For keywords, the UTM code would look similar to a social media one, except instead of Facebook, it will say the keyword. Lastly, you can use a code to track individual ads in a digital marketing campaign. If you use more than one social media platform, it’s normal to have different variations of an ad. If an ad for one of your digital marketing campaigns falls beneath these categories, you can use more than one of these UTM phrases in one URL. Each phrase will be separated by an “&.”
Best Practices in UTM Tracking
While using UTM URLs can seem fairly simple, it’s important to know the best practices when you are creating UTM tracking URLs in order to have success tracking links. Here are some of the best practices to keep in mind when creating and using UTM tracking URLs :
- Make your URLs and links consistent, clean, and easy to read. A good way to ensure consistency is by creating a standard for link tagging/UTM parameter guide.
- Keep a list of your UTM links so everyone on your teams knows which tagged links currently exist.
- Connect UTM tracking to your CRM to gain insight into how your bottom line looks.
- Be specific with your URL UTM parameters so your tags clearly state what you’re tracking and where.
- Stick with all lower or upper case – UTM codes are case-sensitive.
- Keep names short and descriptive. For example, say US rather than United States.
Why Use the Google UTM Builder?
Most of your marketing tools, strategies, and content have the same goal. Whether it’s an email, advertisement, promotion, or social media post, they all have the goal of conversions or awareness. The URL Builder in Google allows you to track each marketing effort separately in Google Analytics .
If you aren’t tracking your marketing campaigns, they get grouped in with all of your other traffic. Then you don’t know what marketing tactics are working for your business and what aren’t. This is specifically important for paid marketing. If you’re spending money, it is imperative to know what is getting you the best results. Otherwise, you risk wasting time, money, and resources in figuring out the best marketing tactics for your business. By keeping track of how you’re getting your traffic, and which routes allow you to get the most traffic, you will save money and time, as well as be able to put more time and resources into strategies that get you the best results.
Finding Your Campaigns in Google Analytics
Now that you have a clear understanding of what UTM is and how to use the Google UTM builder, you need to know how to find your campaigns in Google Analytics. If you want to see the traffic of your site and track your UTM URLs, you first need to log into your Google Analytics account .
Once you’re logged in, go to the Acquisition page, then the Campaign page, then the All Campaigns page. On this page, you will see how many visits you’ve received from each campaign, how long they stayed on your website, how many pages an average they visited while they were there, bounce rate, and conversions. This will allow you to have a clear view of which parts of your marketing campaigns are working and which are not. From there, you will be able to streamline your marketing efforts and focus on the campaigns that work best for you and your business.
Where to See Conversions
In order to find actual conversions, you want to look at the top right of the table, below the line graph. Here you will see a column for conversions. From the drop-down, you can select which goal conversion you’d like to see. If you go back and look at trends over time, you can see what types of articles people spend the most time on and which ones are most successful. In order to have a full view of your conversions and web traffic , you can use Google Analytics in Google Sheets in order to create a report of all of your contact converting pages. This way you will see what is truly happening from your marketing efforts.
Start Using the Google UTM Builder Today
Using the Google UTM Builder will allow you to have more control over the marketing strategies that work best for your business. You will also be able to properly allocate your marketing budget where it is making the most difference. While it might seem time-consuming to set up, it will be worth it in the long run.
FAQ:
- What is UTM?
- Why is UTM important?
- What does a UTM code look like?
- How do I track my UTM URLs?
- Where do I track my web traffic and conversions?
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