Email MarketingCampaign tracking
UTM Tracking
A UTM tag is a short label added to the end of a link. When someone clicks, the analytics tool reads the labels and files the visit under the right source, channel and campaign. At Unicaf I tagged every campaign link this way, so the monthly report could say which email, which post and which ad brought people in.
- Tags per link
Five
Always in the same order, so a link can be read at a glance.
- Read by
Google Analytics
The tags are standard, so any analytics tool understands them.
- Used for
Email, social, paid
Every campaign link at Unicaf, in every channel.
- House rule
Lowercase
One shared vocabulary, no spaces, no surprises.
A tagged link, taken apart
This is what a finished link looks like. Everything after the question mark is tags, joined by ampersands. Pick a tag to see what it answers, an example, and where it sits in the link. The address is made up, the tags are the ones I used.
university.example/apply?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=spring_intake&utm_term=subject_b&utm_content=hero_button
utm_sourceWhere the visitor came from
The site or tool that sent them: google, facebook, newsletter.
Exampleutm_source=newsletter
utm_mediumWhat kind of channel
email, social, cpc, referral. A handful of words, never a new one per campaign.
Exampleutm_medium=email
utm_campaignWhich campaign
The name of the initiative, spelled the same in every tool that mentions it.
Exampleutm_campaign=spring_intake
utm_termWhich keyword or version
Used for paid search keywords, and for the A and B versions of an email.
Exampleutm_term=subject_b
utm_contentWhich link inside the message
When one email has three buttons, this says which one was clicked.
Exampleutm_content=hero_button
Where the tags end up
In Google Analytics the tags become the rows of the traffic report. Every tagged link lands in its own row. A link without tags lands in (direct) / (none), where nobody can tell which campaign sent it.
Traffic acquisition
| Session source / medium | Sessions | Engaged sessions |
|---|---|---|
1newsletter / emailFrom the link above | 4,812 | 3,106 |
2facebook / social | 3,540 | 1,972 |
3google / cpc | 2,961 | 2,015 |
4(direct) / (none)No tags, no campaign | 2,208 | 904 |
House rules
Three rules that kept the report honest
Tags only work if everyone writes them the same way. Three rules did most of the work.
The result was a channel report that agreed with itself from month to month, so the team argued about what to do next rather than about what the numbers meant.
- 1
Lowercase, always
Analytics treats Email and email as two different channels. Everything was lowercase, with underscores instead of spaces.
- 2
One list of names
Sources, channels and campaign names came from one shared list. A new campaign got its name there first, then in the email tool.
- 3
Tagged before sending
Every link was tagged and checked before a campaign went out, not fixed afterwards, because a visit filed under the wrong channel cannot be moved later.