URL Tracking Parameters for Marketing Campaigns
With the wide variety of marketing sources available online, it can be challenging to determine the best way to track your leads. Without appropriate source tracking, it’s impossible to know which marketing methods are working best for you, which are not working at all, and which are worthy of further investment.
Your CRM is instrumental in storing and tracking all marketing efforts and results, including online sources. Here are two of the most important parameters for tracking internet leads:
UTM Tracking = Urchin Tracking Module
UTM stands for Urchin Tracking Module. It is simply a small segment of code that is attached to a URL. It tracks source, medium, campaign, content, term, and much more. Google Analytics uses this data to determine the origin of your products’ search traffic and lead generation.
Here’s an example, this is from a Jeep ad on CNN.com:
Everything after the “?” indicates the various data being tracked – you can clearly see that they are tracking buy type, channel, publisher ID (PID) and session ID (SID). And none of this data changes what is displayed to the viewer – it simply allows your CRM to gather the analytics data your marketing team needs to determine the effectiveness of its online marketing.
Using UTM Tracking in Your Business
Let’s say your company sells online training programs, and you are using LinkedIn and Twitter, your own website, and a handful of other sources, and you want to gather name and email to send out additional information and program discount codes. Use your CRM to build a landing page and generate UTM codes for each source. Once you’ve identified the best sources, you’ll know where to concentrate your marketing energy.
And of course, once you have names and emails in your database with permission to market, you can continue to build a relationship and move your prospects through your funnel to an eventual sale.
Gclid = Google Click Identifier
Google Click Identifier is another way to connect offline conversions to online marketing programs. The URL looks very similar to UTM, but you’ll see the word “gclid” after the question mark. Google Analytics can then use this information to gather data such as time spent on sige, pages per visit, actions taken – all the information you see when you look at your website analytics. These details also drive your ROAS (return on ad spend) to track the results of your online advertising investments.
Implementing Gclid
In order to use Gclid, you need to integrate Google Ads and Google Analytics. The Gclid is attached to your ad URLs when you turn on auto-tagging in your Google Ads account. When this is then integrated with your CRM software, you’ll have a highly effective lead management tool that gathers detailed information you can use to drive sales.
Gclid Data & Your CRM
By saving the Gclid information directly to your CRM, you can closely track leads through your landing pages and forms. As you build a relationship with your new prospects, your marketing and sales team can take appropriate actions to move the prospect through your sales funnel.
Putting UTM & Gclid Together
Some businesses use both UTM (manual) and Gclid (auto-tagging). In the past this practice was avoided because it created major reporting issues. But now you can use an advanced option in Google Analytics Property settings to “Allow manual tagging to override auto-tagging.” This will ensure that, if both sets of information are gathered, only the UTM data will be passed along, thus avoiding reporting confusion.
Ready for More Effective Online Marketing?
If you’d like more guidance on how your CRM can drive effective marketing, get in touch with us here at AspenTech CRM. We’re experts at integrating your marketing sources and methods to create actionable analytics that drive your business success.
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