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Google analytics URL builder allows links to be tagged with custom variables to enable us to collect data around marketing campaigns.

Campaign variables will help track how successful promotions are at generating website traffic.

This guide provides step-by-step instructions to:

  1. create a URL to be tracked
  2. share URL
  3. analyse performance of the URL in Google Analytics.

How to create a custom campaign:

1. Add URL parameters

  1. Open the URL register and add all relevant information about the campaign (refer to naming convention below), and add new records accordingly.
    S:\Web\Projects\Current projects\Analytics campaign builder\ga-campaign-url-builder.xlsx 

2. Create campaign URL

  1. Go to  Google's Campaign URL builder
  2. Add all relevant data (as recorded in step 1 above),
  3. Select 'Copy URL' button

3. Create and share bitly shortcut

  1. Go to Bitly short url builder (nationalmuseum account - password in kee)
  2. Select 'Create Bitlink' button
  3. Paste the URL (copied in step 2.3 above), in the long URL field to generate shirt URL
  4. 'Save' the bitlinks link
  5. Copy the new short url and paste it in the URL field in the register spreadsheet (point 1.1)
  6. Test url to ensure redirect works and campaign data is in url (eg: 'songlines?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=timeout&utm_campaign=songlines-promotion&utm_content=tvc')
  7. Send the short URL to marketing team (for publishing to the corresponding medium)
  8. Save and close the spreadsheet.

How to access campaign analytics

  1. Login to Google Analytics
  2. Select the date range for the report
  3. From the left navigation pane select Acquisition, Campaigns, All campaigns
  4. Select the campaign name as recorded in the URL builder above.

Naming convention:

Consistency in naming conventions is the most important rule. It will eliminate confusion when reporting by utm parameters.

It is also important to avoid duplication in the terms and channels.  For example, you would not want "facebook" to be used for the campaign and source parameter.

Each parameter should be distinct.

You can think of the UTM parameters as a set of identifiers that go from broad to granular in detail. Example:

  • Campaign source: Name of source (eg: Facebook, Twitter, Campaign monitor)
  • Campaign medium: Name of the medium within source (Fanpage, Twitter, Email)
  • Campaign name: Use the same campaign name for all urls promoting a unique campaign, for a repetead campaign add a time reference (eg: Frewheeling May 2015, Freewheeling April 2017)
  • Campaign terms and content can include comma-separated key words around that particular post/url.

Resources:

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