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January 13, 2006

Google Analytics Link Tagging 101

By Michael Harrison, Google Analytics Support Tech

The only way for you to see which advertising media are actually returning your investment is to tag your ads. It's an extremely simple process with Google Analytics, once you're prepared with the basic knowledge on how to categorize your various campaigns.

First, understand that you only tag what you need to tag. Don't confuse yourself, or add unnecessary work. For example, if you need to track a Google AdWords account that is linked with your Google Analytics account, you don't need to tag your AdWords URLs at all. Google Analytics does it automatically. Other paid marketing campaigns like banners, and unpaid media like email campaigns should definitely be tagged.

You can't tag organic results (of course), and depending on how you want to measure any affiliate program you're enrolled in, it's not necessary to tag them either. Search engine traffic will automatically register in Google Analytics, along with keyword metrics. Your referrals for all other sites are also counted, and will be displayed automatically under referral reports.

Use only the tags that you need. In keeping with the above sentiment of avoiding wasteful labor, you don't need to go all-out with tagging variables either. There are five campaign variables, and all can be used with a variety of advertising media. The table below describes each variable. You can hold your mouse over the variable name for more information:

  Banner Ad Email Newsletter CPC
Source foodtv newsletter0601 ysm
Medium banner email cpc
Campaign Restaurant ThaiBitesNews Restaurant
Term     thai+restaurant
Content foodtv_120x240 newsletter0601a thai_a

You certainly don't need to use every single one of these, though. The ones you'll want to become intimately familiar with are Source, Medium, Campaign, and if you're tracking paid keywords, Term. When you're trying to find out which ad creative is performing best, Content can be a great addition to the mix, as well.

Use our handy Google Analytics Destination URL Builder. Is all of this a little too complex for you? No problem. Check out our Google Analytics Destination URL Builder and let us do the work for you. Plug in your variables, click a button, and we'll generate your tagged link. Simply cut and paste into your ad.

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Posted by Michael Harrison at 11:46 AM









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Comments

Hi,

I was wondering, if you use Google AdWords and track them with Google Analytics, is there ever a reason to manually tag these ads?

Thanks!

- Greg Moore

Posted by: Greg Moore at February 23, 2007 11:22 AM

If you need to track a Google AdWords account that is linked with your Google Analytics account, you don't need to tag your AdWords URLs at all. Google Analytics does it automatically.

Posted by: Timothy at February 23, 2007 4:48 PM

if you do "go all out", and tag galore... does this give you more time for tracking than without tagging?

Posted by: dan at October 12, 2007 4:26 PM

If you are sending people to an intermediary page will the tagged link travel through to the final URL?

For example, we are sending people to a informational page, but the shopping cart is located on a different domain.

Any help would be appreciated.

Christiana

Posted by: Christiana at March 20, 2008 6:39 PM

@Christiana: Unless you set up the intermediary page to redirect the visitor along with the utm parameters, the tracking will not make it through. Also, moving visitors from your site to the shopping cart domain will require use of special linking functions built into Google Analytics.

Posted by: Michael Harrison, Google Analytics Support Tech Author Profile Page at March 21, 2008 11:14 AM

This looks like a good idea, but I have no idea what to do with this generated tag. If I understand correctly, you can use this to see if an email or newsletter sends someone to one of your website pages. Is that correct? If so, how would you do that?

Posted by: Gil at April 10, 2008 12:52 PM

@Gil: You just take the URL that is generated and use it for a link within your email. So, for instance, if you have a link in your email to take visitors to your homepage, you change the URL from just http://www.mysite.com/ to the URL that was generated by the builder.

Posted by: Michael Harrison, Google Analytics Support Tech Author Profile Page at April 10, 2008 1:07 PM

I noticed that the filter fields included something called "campaign code" with along with the other parameters (campaign source, campaign medium, etc.) I can not find anything that mentions "campaign code" anywhere. Is that a different tracking parameter? If so what is it used for?

Posted by: Gael at May 22, 2008 10:28 AM

@Gael: According to the help entry on what information is stored within filter fields, the Campaign Code is:

"The campaign code, defined by the tagged request query, can be used to refer to a campaign lookup table, or chart of referring codes used to define variables in place of multiple request query tags."

Essentially, this variable refers to a campaign lookup table, where you can match up IDs with specific source/medium/campaign combinations and add smaller tags to your URLs. Those of you who used GA back in the Urchin On-Demand days will recall that this was something you could use to convert:

www.mysite.com?utm_source=test&utm_medium=test&utm_campaign=test

Into:

www.mysite.com?utm_id=1443

What Google doesn't mention in that helpfile is that this feature is not yet supported, so don't worry too much about it for the time being. We'll let you know if and when you can start using it again.

Posted by: Michael Harrison, Google Analytics Support Tech Author Profile Page at May 22, 2008 10:49 AM

In our adwords account there is 2 Seperate Adword Clients set up for one client. NonBrand and Brand
Is there a way to link these to 1 Analytics Account?

Thanks

Posted by: jolene at June 27, 2008 12:57 PM

@Jolene: If you're saying that your AdWords login brings you to two unique AdWords accounts, then you might be using an AdWords My Client Center (MCC). MCCs cannot be linked to Analytics accounts.

If, however, you are referring to two different AdWords campaigns (NonBrand and Brand campaigns), then you can link the single AdWords account to the Analytics account.

Posted by: Michael Harrison, Google Analytics Support Tech Author Profile Page at July 2, 2008 10:48 AM

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