When it comes to digital marketing, you are only as good as the tracking you have in place. Otherwise, you are basing all of your efforts on assumptions which then turn into big losses in time and money.
Stop playing the guessing game with your digital marketing and check out the top ways in which you can start tracking real results.
1. Google Analytics
If you do not currently have Google Analytics installed on your website, stop what you are doing and do it now! Well, you can finish reading this blog first, but it does need to be placed near the top of your to-do list before you can even begin to have any kind of successful digital marketing tracking strategy.
Google Analytics holds your digital marketing tracking together. It is where you go to find out:
- How much traffic your website is getting
- Where that traffic is coming from
- What demographic your website is attracting
- How long on average users spend on your site
- How many times those visitors viewed a page on your site within the last 30 days
- Which pages have the most drop off in traffic
- A slew of other data points that help you learn more about how your company is succeeding in the digital marketing space
You can even go a little further with Google Analytics and set up Goal and Event tracking which, in turn, allows you to start tracking your websites overall ROI.
To get started using Google Analytics, visit: https://analytics.google.com/analytics/web/
2. UTM Parameters (aka UTM Links)
UTM stands for Urchin Tracking Model. It is a tracking parameter used by Google to connect designated link shares to your website’s traffic in Google Analytics. This is a fancy way of saying that Google adds some extra identifiers to your link shares that you can then use to drill down on your website’s traffic sources based on links you have shared.
UTM Parameters consist of four required elements:
- Website URL: This is the page on your website that you are trying to send traffic to.
- Campaign Source: Use this field to identify where on the web this link will live. (i.e. Social Media, Email Newsletter, ThirdPartySite.com)
- Campaign Medium: This helps identify the specific element within the Campaign Source that the link will be placed. For example, if your Campaign Source is Social Media, your Campaign Medium could be to separate Facebook Ads and LinkedIn Ads.
- Campaign Name: This identifies the product, promotion, special, or slogan mentioned within your ad.
For those experienced with using UTM links, you can add more specific tracking parameters that include Campaign Term and Campaign Content.
Examples of when you would use UTM parameters include:
- Identifying what messaging on social media posts drive the most traffic or user interaction
- Differentiating which call-to-action drove the most results in an email
- Tracking traffic to your site from banners or advertisements you place on third-party sites
- Testing various internal campaign elements on your website
- Redirects for vanity URLs to attempt to capture traffic from print campaigns
Start building your collection of UTM links to differentiate your online campaigns by visiting:
https://ga-dev-tools.appspot.com/campaign-url-builder/
(Note: We recommend setting up a standardized system of creating and keeping track of the links you create. This will help later on when you are analyzing your site’s traffic.)
3. Conversion Tracking
There is no mystery here. Conversion tracking is exactly what it sounds like, an ability to track what you have identified as a conversion on your website.
Every platform has its own name for this method, but they all share the commonality that you are taking a small snippet of code and embedding it into your website to capture when a user performs a specific action on your website. For example, a conversion could be when someone fills out a contact form, downloads a whitepaper, watches a video, or makes a purchase.
Examples of Conversion Tracking tools include:
- Facebook Pixel
- LinkedIn Insight Tag
- Google Ads Conversion
- Pinterest Tag
Depending on how your site is set up, you may need help from an experienced web developer to properly insert your campaign’s conversion tracking code. Luckily, we can name at least one experienced digital marketing agency that would be more than happy to help you out.
4. Call Tracking
Call tracking has been around for years, but it is still hit or miss on whether companies have adapted it into their digital marketing tracking strategies.
Essentially, digital marketing tracking strategies that incorporate call tracking will integrate a specific phone number to your company’s various campaigns to help you then be able to decide which campaign source inspired the person to call your business. This is typically done with the help from a third-party call-tracking service.
Examples of mediums you can incorporate call tracking into include:
- Print and Digital Ads
- Email Campaigns
- Specific Landing Pages
- Social Media Accounts
A simple Google search for call tracking software will yield countless options for any sized campaign or budget.
5. Google Tag Manager (GTM)
Google Tag Manager is a bit of a game-changer when it comes to digital marketing tracking strategies. Working off of a series of tags and triggers, GTM allows you to easily identify different actions users can take on your website, as well as the source of said traffic.
Even better, with its ability to integrate with all major conversion tracking methods, including those mentioned above, Google Tag Manager gives you one centralized location.
Bonus points: It can also help increase your page’s load times.
Don’t just take our word for how awesome Google Tag Manager is. Watch this video from Google itself:
Learn more about Google Tag Manager https://tagmanager.google.com/
Get Help With These Digital Marketing Tracking Strategies!
Need help figuring out how to set up the best digital marketing tracking strategies for your business? Sign up for Alder & Co.’s free digital marketing consultation today![/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]