Google Analytics tracks ad traffic from different channels

A problem that is frequently encountered in network marketing. I also put ads on portals, search engines, e-mails, and Ad alliances. What are the advertising effects of these channels? Which channel has the highest ad clicks? Which channel has the worst advertising effect? Should I continue to choose these channels during the next promotion?

In the face of these problems, each channel will provide a results report after the advertising ends. The content includes two parts. 1. The impression of an advertisement is usually a large number, which can easily reach millions. 2. The ad clicks are usually around 100,000. Then, some impressions and click rates are derived from the data. Average daily click rate and other data. But none of these are what we want. We want to know how many visitors finally came to my website, where they went and what they did. And so on.

PS: This article is an entry-level article about how to track traffic from different channels (front-end). It does not involve end-to-end ROI monitoring issues. A special article will be provided later.

To solve these problems, Google Analytics can add link tags. Simply put, the variable is added after the target URL of the AD in different channels, and each variable is assigned a value in advance. When a visitor clicks these links. We can clearly distinguish the source and quality of these visitors in the report.

Necessary preparations:

Adding link tags is a simple task. However, preparations are important. Google Analytics provides five fixed variables to differentiate different ad traffic,

Sources, media, keywords, content, and Ad series.

Before adding a link tag, sort out the overall promotion plan and the channels used. For example, the time period of the marketing activity and the name of the marketing activity. The promotion channel (source) and related attributes (media) used ). As well as ad content from different channels, landing page addresses, and other information that requires special tracking. And so on.

Generally, the highest level of the advertising series is used to identify the name of the entire marketing campaign.Sources and media are used to differentiate traffic. Keywords are used to identify specific content in an advertisement. Content users track other related information. (Location, size, color, and other information .) Full preparation and utilization of these five variables can make the report easy to understand and avoid repeated and chaotic data.

How to add link tag:

Using the Tool Web Builder provided by Google Analytics, you can easily add the corresponding link tag to the URL.

Step 1: Enter the original URL. Example: http://bluewhale.cc/

Step 2: Enter the source, media, and advertisement series based on the names and channels determined during the preparation activities.

Step 3: generate a new URL with a link tag.

Http://bluewhale.cc/?Utm_source = sina & utm_medium = banner & utm_term = % E8 % 93% 9d % E9 % B2 % B8 % E7 % BD % 91% E7 % AB % 99% E5 % 88% E6 % 9e % 90% E7 % AC % 94% E8 % AE % B0 % E8 % B5 % 84% E6 % Ba % 90% E5 % A4 % A7 % E6 % B4 % be % E9 % 80% 81% EF % BC % 81 & utm_content = 640_90 & utm_campaign = bluewhale_20100311

PS: In the above URL, the link tag information is added after the question mark. The Chinese part shows the encoded content.

Let's explain in detail the functions of each field:

* Ad series (utm_campaign): used to identify the entire marketing activity.

* Source (utm_source): used to identify the traffic source. For example, search, portal, email, and AD Alliance.

* Media (utm_medium): used to identify the traffic source attributes. For example, CPC, traffic swaps, monthly subscription advertisements, etc.

Keyword (utm_term): used to identify keyword information in an advertisement. For example, the blue whale website has a large delivery of analysis note resources!

Content (utm_content): flexible usage. It can also be used to perform a/B testing on different advertisements of the same activity.

PS: Tool Web Site Builder is convenient, but inefficient. Only one web site can be produced at a time. If you want to create and manage many links, try the link of epikone.
Tag gadgets.

How to view reports:

All traffic generated by URLs added to the link tag will be recorded separately by Google in the ad Series Report of the traffic source section.. In AD series reports, you can view traffic information from various dimensions (logon pages, geographic locations, and) like in the content reports. Alternatively, you can operate any measurement in the ad series in the advanced group.

Notes:

1 case sensitivity:Although Google Analytics has a case filter, this does not work for the content in the link tag. These reports are still case sensitive. For example.Baidu and Baidu are divided into two different traffic sources.

2 Chinese Character problems:Only the keyword variables in the link tag can enter Chinese characters. The text in other variables may be garbled in the report. Therefore, except for keyword variables, other values must be in English.

3. Three required questions:Source, media, and advertisement series are mandatory. Among them, the most important advertising series. Because I did not use the ad series in a test. The consequence is that this part of data cannot be found at all. The advanced group function is used to separate data. If you don't want. It is best to use the advertisement series every time.

4. content variables:Content variables are different from the other four variables and can be used flexibly according to the actual situation of each marketing activity. For example, in my previous article, using this variable to mark the location information of a mail click is an example.

5. Search engine problems:In the search engine report, traffic is divided into two types: paid and free. (Total | paid | non-paid) When tracking Baidu bidding, although ordinary Like tag tags can split this part of traffic, however, in the entire search report, the traffic from Baidu's bid is still mixed with the traffic from Baidu's natural search results. If you want to mark this part of traffic as paid search traffic (paid) and separate it from Baidu's natural search result traffic. You must mark Baidu in the source field of the link tag and CPC in the media. (Traffic from adwords is automatically distinguished after automatic marking is enabled. Manually tagged by Google, media CPC)

Read more: http://bluewhale.cc/2010-03-11/google-analytics-url-builder-tracking-different-channel-traffic.html#ixzz2E9ryIpfy