In this new series "How Does This Sh!t Work" Meg and Erica will be breaking down marketing topics in a Q&A format to help you learn marketing strategies that will grow your email list and drive more sales. Follow along as Erica gives us a crash course on UTM's where she goes over what they are, how to build them, and what Privy can do to help you track them.
What the heck are UTM parameters?
UTM parameters are tags that you add to the URLs that you put on your emails, social media posts, and digital ads. These tags can be tracked in your Google Analytics dashboard so that you can better understand how visitors get to your site.
Where do I find UTM data in Google Analytics?
In your Google Analytics dashboard, go to the left sidebar and click "Acquisition", in that menu click "All Traffic", and from there click "Source/Medium".
How to build and manage UTM URLs?
Lucky for you, Google has a UTM builder that makes it super easy to build UTM parameters. In case you'd like to build them yourself, let's go through an example. Let's say we're sending a monthly newsletter email that I want to track, the basic structure for UTM parameters in this example would be:
Source = Email
Medium = Newsletter
Campaign = April2018
My final URL would look like this:
http://privy.com/utm_source=email&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_April2018
As you can see in the final URL, the "&" symbol is used to separate the UTM's from each other. We recommend keeping track of your UTM's in a plain old spreadsheet. And consider yourself warned: UTM parameters are CASE SENSITIVE. We’ve seen UTM's get unwieldy in a hurry because folks have used similar (but different) taxonomy.
How would I install Google Analytics into Privy?
To enable Google Analytics tracking go to your Privy dashboard, click on your email in the top right corner, and open "Business Settings". From here, select "Customizations" in the left side bar, and then scroll down to ensure the check box next to "Enable Google Analytics" is checked. It's as easy as that!
How do I connect UTM parameters to on-site campaigns?
In Privy, you can use audience targeting to connect your on-site campaigns with your UTM parameters. To do this, open a campaign, switch over to the design tab, and select the audience targeting menu. From here, you can select "Add Condition" and change "Current URL" to "Initial URL this session". After that you simply add type in your UTM parameters like so:
utm_source=Email
utm_medium=Newsletter
utm_campaign=April2018
Click save and you're all set up!
Thanks for joining us in the first installment of How Does This Sh!t Work? Have more questions about UTM's or suggestions on what topics we should cover next? Don't hesitate to comment or reach out to us in our live chat. Happy tracking!