Did you know that you can use Google Analytics to help you more accurately track inbound traffic from multiple outbound marketing efforts? If you are running a social media campaign, email marketing campaign or have banner ads or partner links out on various sites then this article is for you. This may also be a good way to AB test different banner ads or posts.
Here are three examples of how campaign urls can turbo charge your marketing.
Social Media, Email Marketing – Anytime you make a post through one of your social channels it is a good idea to use a campaign url. By creating customized campaign urls you will be able to see which links sent the most traffic and what the visitor did once they arrived on your site. Combining campaign urls with a goal funnel will help you best determine which posts or which channels provide higher conversion rates.
Tip – Use a url shortener service such as bit.ly to track social mention for your landing page. I like using bit.ly because it will not only allow you to shrink and customize the name of your campaign url, but it will tell you who and how many users are also creating short links for your landing page. Viewing this data over time may help you identify brand champions.
Banner Ads, Partner Links – By placing campaign urls in your banner ads or on partner sites you can better track the effectiveness of specific types of advertising or segments of your market.
Tip: Do you and your staff have links to your website at the bottom of your emails? Use unique campaign urls (and bit.ly) to track referrals from specific email accounts to your website or even social media sites.
A/B Testing – Campaign urls can also be used to test two versions of the same ad to see which ad resonates more with the intended audience and offers higher conversion rates.
Tip: Have you ever sat around the office arguing about which banner you thought would be more effective at converting customers. Place both designs out there and use campaign urls to track which ad has a higher conversion rate. Note: Do not use campaign urls on your own site. For tracking on your own site you should use event tracking code.
The secret to sales success is research. The more you know about your customer and what they respond to the better.