Comments on: 4 Tips For Using Google URL Builder With Google Analytics

By: Mark @ Alchemy United

Mark @ Alchemy United — Tue, 18 May 2010 00:19:47 +0000

“If these urls are intended only for your off line campaigns, then surely anyone landing on these pages came from your off line activity and no further tagging is needed. So if a lead landed on your landing page, he or she could have only seen your off line ad and headed to the landing page directly. If on the other hand, you’re going to post these links on your site as well, event tracking will work better. ”

I know I’m late on making this comment but, I don’t agree. As I understand it, the advantage of *consistently* using the URL Builder format is that it becomes easier to analyze pro-active incoming traffic because all those links tagged the same way. Something like that

By: Ran

Ran — Sun, 16 May 2010 07:53:52 +0000

Hi Ronan,

It will take some time before the information appears in GA, maybe up to 24hrs depending on the level of traffic you’re getting. Go to all traffic sources and use the free text window under ‘Filter Source/Medium’ to type the source name. It should come up if traffic did originate from this source and the tagging worked. I hope this helps. Ran

By: Ronan

Ronan — Fri, 14 May 2010 16:43:47 +0000

A little more guidance:

Under your “tag social site” example, the final output is http://bit.ly/aXEW7. Where in GA would I find this pesky little link so I can report it as a metric?

Good post. Thanks for your help.

By: Ronan

Ronan — Fri, 14 May 2010 16:40:19 +0000

Ran,

I’m managing a large site with a lot of traffic. I followed your recommendations above for measuring Twitter bitly links back to the site. Where in Google Analytics specifically would I look/search for the results? You mentioned under the “traffic sources” tab, but where exactly?

Thanks!

By: Ran

Ran — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 10:48:10 +0000

This type of information is available within Google Analytics or AdWords. The URL builder is really used for tagging traffic channels where reporting otherwise is very difficult.

By: Mark Scott

Mark Scott — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 21:51:49 +0000

If I’m tracking 150 key words, and need to know what’s happening with each. Do i need to build 150 different Ads, and build a unique URL for each?

Thanks

By: Ran

Ran — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 07:29:38 +0000

The URL builder is available here. Once the new URL is tagged and used, the traffic source will appear in your Google Analytics under the traffic sources tab.

By: Alex

Alex — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 23:23:57 +0000

Hi,

Where do I find the URL builder in Google Analytics?

By: Bradley Davis

Bradley Davis — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 04:31:08 +0000

Justin makes a good point re GA and internal linking.
Another concern I would have in tagging text links is search bots might interpret the link as artificial and therefore ignore the link, therefore harming your site hierarchy and wasting an opportunity to consolidate the subject of a page via the anchor text.

By: Ran

Ran — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 09:01:43 +0000

Hi Andrew,
If these urls are intended only for your off line campaigns, then surely anyone landing on these pages came from your off line activity and no further tagging is needed. So if a lead landed on your landing page, he or she could have only seen your off line ad and headed to the landing page directly. If on the other hand, you’re going to post these links on your site as well, event tracking will work better.

Other ways to track off line conversions (which can plug in to GA)

- Dedicated phone number for the campaign
- Redeem code designed only for the campaign

Hope this helps.