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How to Create and Track Vanity URLs Using Google Analytics

Have you ever wondered how brands track their offline advertising (TV, radio, newspaper) on their website? One way is to create a vanity URL. I’ll explain what is it, how to create it, and how to track it using Google Analytics.

What is a Vanity URL?

A Vanity URL is a custom web address that redirects your visitor to a specific domain. They are usually short and descriptive, and can easily be recognized as part of your business’ branding. They are used for the sole purpose of tracking offline campaigns (TV, radio, print and display ads). The reason the custom URL is essential is because it allows the marketer to differentiate when someone finds your business online by typing your website directly versus someone who finds it through a TV ad by typing the vanity URL that was in the ad. Vanity URLs also allow you to measure the performance of the offline campaigns which is very important for marketers.

How to Create and Track Vanity URLs

Thanks to Google Analytics, you will be able to get a specific report on your offline campaigns that uses the selected vanity URL. But first, let’s create a URL and make it trackable.

1. Buy Vanity URL

Just as you would buy a domain name for your website, you’ll buy one for your vanity use. Go to GoDaddy or 1&1 or Hover and make sure the domain you want is available and buy it.

2. Create a URL that is Trackable

After buying the vanity URL, you’ll need to make sure that it will trackable, here’s how:

Go to Google’s URL Builder tool and make sure to setup your UTM correctly by:

Making sure you fill out these required fields: Website URL, Campaign Source,Campaign Medium. The Campaign Name and Campaign Content fields are optional.
Click on Generate URL and you are good to go, you’ve just created your new Destination URL!

For more information on campaign tracking, enjoy the reading here!

3. Redirect or Forward the Trackable URL to the URL to which you are trying to send Visitors

Go to the site where you purchased the vanity URL and log in. In the account settings for that URL, either select the “redirect” or “forward to” option. Paste the campaign tracking URL you created with Google’s URL Builder.

4. Create an Offline Campaign Google Analytics Report

It is important to get a report with data from your offline marketing campaign. With Google Analytics it is easy to do so, here’s how:

Go to Google Analytics
Select the website account for which you’re setting up a vanity URL
On the left hand column, go to “Dashboards” and Click on “New Dashboard”
Select “Starter Dashboard” and name it it something specific, like “Denver TV Ads.” Click “Create Dashboard.”
In the “New Users” widget, click the edit pencil to open its settings.
To see only new visits from the vanity URL click “Add a Filter” under “Filter this Data.”
Leave “Only Show” as-is. Click the drop-down menu to its right, type in or type “Full Referrer” and click it. Leave “Containing” as-is, and then type “TV” in the empty field beside it. Then click “Save.”
Do the same for all your other widgets like “Visits by Location,” goal completions, time on page, bounce rate, and other important metrics you would like to keep track of.

5. Final step before launching the campaign: Test It!

Before you launch your offline campaign make sure to type in your vanity URL, and then check your dashboard’s real-time analytics to make sure everything’s working.

Now, get ready to rock that campaign!

Written by:Team IMA

Like Comments Off on How to Create and Track Vanity URLs Using Google Analytics / February 12, 2019 /

Campaign Tracking Guideline with Google Analytics – The What, Why & How to

Analytics

What is campaign tracking in Google Analytics?

Google Analytics (GA) is able to track all visitors to your website. However, by default there are only four channel groupings, also called Mediums – referral, direct, organic, paid. What GA doesn’t track by default is campaign tracking which refers to a method of identifying how users discover your site. Specifically, you use campaign tracking in Google Analytics to accurately track online advertising campaigns sending traffic to your website, such as Bing and Yahoo, your email newsletter, social campaign, and other online activity you want to track separately from the pack four (mediums that are tracked by default). You want to track these campaigns separately so you can measure the performance of every different marketing campaign you are running.

Why setup campaign tracking in Google Analytics?

Setting up campaign tracking for your non-Adwords advertising campaign is essential if you want to have accurate monthly reports like this:

If you don’t set it up, the Banners and CPC campaigns would be labeled as referral traffic and emails would be labeled as direct traffic. This is problematic when you launch a campaign and want to be able to measure the effectiveness and its impact on your overall online marketing campaign.

An Example of how messy your reports can get?

This is one of my client’s Referral traffic report from January 1, 2012 through July 23, 2013. A referral traffic report is meant to give you data about external websites that link to your website, not paid advertising campaigns. For instance, when seeing this report, I would think that 1,696 visits came from external websites but unfortunately it is not the case. The 95 referral websites that are listed in the report (only the top 10 are listed) have a recorded 1,217 visits coming from paid advertising campaigns which represents 71.8% of the entire referral traffic. Unfortunately this data is skewed and the only way to solve this issue is to use campaign tracking.

How to use campaign tracking?

To start setting up campaign tracking, you need to create a dynamic URL. It sounds complicated but it isn’t because Google offers a great and easy tool to use to create those campaign URLs and here is an easy checklist to setup Destination URLs for every ad campaign:

1. For destination URL Creation go to: http://support.google.com/analytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1033867&rd=1

2. Make sure to fill out these required fields: Website URL, Campaign Source,Campaign Medium. The Campaign Name and Campaign Content fields are optional.

3. Finally, click on Generate URL and you are good to go, you’ve just created your new Destination URL!

This URL will ensure that your campaign is tracked in the campaign tracking report instead of Referrals. Let ‘s take an example and say that I want to track my BING ads:

Click submit and here is your new Campaign Tracking URL: http://www.example.com/coupon?utm_source=BING&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=Coupon&utm_content=Version1&utm_campaign=Promo+Code+on+Coupon

You’re ready to get started!

If you are running many online marketing activities via social media, email marketing, and non-Adwords ads, campaign tracking is the way to go, otherwise you won’t be able to see the impact and the effectiveness of each one of your campaigns. There you have it, a great tool for measuring your campaigns’ success. Any thoughts? Feel free to share them with me below.