URL tracking on offline material
-
Hi there,
Hope someone can give some advice.
We are doing some magazine advertising, the main purpose of the advert is to promote one of our new products, however the URL goes something like this:
http://www.domain.com/products/new-product-libra-furniture/ which is just too long for anyone to remember, I think it should be simply domain.com/libra which redirects to the product page, however how can I track this in Google Analytics? if using a 301 that's impossible?
Any advice would be grateful.
-
Hi Gary,
Has your question been answered? You've received some stellar responses in this thread!
Christy
-
I agree! And thanks for reminding the community about to award great answers with the "Helpful Answer" status, Paul!
-
The level of thought and comprehensiveness Jason has put into each of these replies is really impressive! Such great answers around each of these specific issues. Gotta agree with him on each one.
Nicely done, IMO.
Paul
P.S. Gary, when you feel the question's been fully answered, don't forget to mark the most useful responses with "Helpful Answer" status. You got some great info here and it's a great way to reward the folks who helped most.
-
Hi Jason,
Thanks for you detailed reply.
The conversion will be for the consumer to enter a give-away on a new product we are soon to launch, which is exclusive to a particular magazine.
Yes, prints ads will be a primary ongoing marketing vehicle which will be promoting the same product but in different magazines however using different CTAs so I will have to create various landing pages for this, maybe this could be an issue in the near future?
Thanks
-
Great question. I debated suggesting that your just keep all those landing pages out of the index, but I don't know enough about your content/use-case to make a suggestion.
What's the conversion action you are trying to achieve? Are you selling a product or service right on the landing page, or are you sending them to a Product Detail page to make a purchase?
The challenge is that, you might have users see your magazine ad, and then later try to find you with "Cool thing I saw in Time Magazine"
You have to balance a number of factors:
1. Are print ads a primary and ongoing marketing vehicle for you. So you'll have an ever growing inventory of publication specific landing pages.
2. Do you get a lot of search volume that would convert better if it went to a non-publication specific landing page.
3. Is there a high converting canonical non-pub specific version of all the content that will exist on the pub specific landing page?
4. What is your sales cycle? Are you a low-consideration product that a prospect will buy shortly after consuming your landing page content, or will a prospect make numerous visits to your site, and consume dozens of pages of content before making a purchase?
Part of the fun of what we all do for a living is that every circumstance is different
-
Thanks Jason.
Would you not use a noindex tag on the page instead of rel=canonical?
-
Yep, if you're willing to set up a separate landing page for each Ad/Campaign, then by all means do that. Then you can assume all direct traffic on the URL is the campaign traffic.
That would also let you customize each landing page for the publication, which will improve your relevancy and reduce your bounce rate. I.E. If www.mysite.com/life has an image with the cover of the actual edition of Life magazine I saw your ad in, then I know I'm in the right place.
As you mentioned, if the content of many landing page is basically the same, then make sure you use rel="canonical" tags to consolidate your link juice.
My suggestion to use vanity urls linking to a landing page with campagin codes, would be if you wanted a single landing page to serve multiple campaigns (or other sources of traffic).
-
Hi All,
Thanks for all your feedback so far.
I don't think I will use a URL shortener, not memorable enough.
QR Code, not quite right for the audience.
Regarding:
Then set up a redirect for that URL that redirect to a landing page with a campaign code:
http://www.mysite.com/landing?utm_source=Life&utm_medium=Magazine&utm_campaign=Great
Why don't I just use www.mysite.com/Life as the landing page which replicates the original product page and put a noindex on the page or a canonical?
What do you think?
-
Create a short vanity URL to put in the magazine (i.e. Life Magazine).
Then set up a redirect for that URL that redirect to a landing page with a campaign code:
http://www.mysite.com/landing?utm_source=Life&utm_medium=Magazine&utm_campaign=Great
Now you have a campaign in GA you can track.
Alternatively, (as others have suggested) you can use a URL shortener:
bit.ly/adsf72 -> http://www.mysite.com/landing?utm_source=Life&utm_medium=Magazine&utm_campaign=Great
The shortener gives you a short url and an extra layer of tracking, but the short url will be less meaningful or memorable (unless you do a completely custom one).
If you want to go with a QRCode, do it in addition to (not instead of) printing, the short URL.
Use the shortest URL possible in the QRCode because short URL's = lower density QR Codes that are easier to scan.
-
A 301 redirect or something like bitly should work.
-
Hi Gary,
You can use Google's URL shortener to manage your campaigns and then set up Custom Segment and view it in the report in Google Analytics. I know this works for Social Media and Email campaigns but not sure about offline campaigns. http://www.mktdojo.com/how-to-track-email-and-social-media-campaigns-with-google-analytics
Another way I guess is to use bit.ly, when you shorten a link, they provide stats to track the number of people clicking on the link. Once again, I know it works for Social Media campaigns but not sure about offline.
Finally, you can try using QR codes. QR Codes are widely used in off line campaigns or events. Readers don't have to memorize the link and enter it in the url, they can simply scan it with their phone. Furthermore, you can use either method mentioned above and create a QR code with it so that you can track the number of visits.
Why create a custom link and use it for the QR Code instead of your original link? If you are using the custom link for the QR code, then you know that if you have visits via the custom link, they are definitely from scanning the QR code.
Hope this helps!
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
URL Spoof Issue in Search Results
Hello! We could use some assistance diagnosing an issue. In order to avoid asking a convoluted question, I will try to break it down below: 1. A random foreign site is hacked and a subdirectory is added that is completely irrelevant to the root. a). i.e. http://www.um.org/prom_dresses/ 2. http://www.um.org/prom_dresses/ is just a phishing prom dress page 3. When you search "prom dress shop", the website that used to rank first (for good reason) was www.promdressshop.com. 4. www.promdressshop.com's home page has now been replaced by: um.org/prom_dresses/ – who is using prom dress shop's title tag and meta description. How is it possible that this hacked page (on um.org) is not only ranking above us, but is also starting to replace www.promdressshop.com's pages in search results. We do not believe www.promdressshop.com has been hacked but are open to any ideas. Please let me know if you would like any additional info. Thanks in advance! new
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | LogicalMediaGroup0 -
Which URLs were indexed 2 years ago?
Hi, I hope anyone can help me with this issue. Our french domain experienced a huge drop of indexed URLs in 2012. More than 50k URLs were indexed, after the drop less than 10k were counted. I would like to check what happened here and which URLs were thrown out of the index. So I was thinking about a comparison between todays data and the data of 2012. Unfortunately we don't have any data on the indexed pages in 2012 beside the number of indexed pages. Is there any way to check, which URLs were indexed 2 years ago?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Sandra_h0 -
Capitals in URLs
Hello Mozzers. I've just been looking at a site with capitals in the URL - capitals are used in the product descriptions, so you'll have a URL structure like this: www.company.com/directory1/Double-Beds-Luxury (such URLs do not work if I lower the case of the capitals). There are 50,000 such products on the site. Clearly one drawback is potential customers might type in, or link to, the lower case of the URL and get a "not found" result (though the urls are relatively long so not that likely I'm thinking). Are there any additional drawbacks with the use of capitals outlined here?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | McTaggart0 -
Can Anybody Link to my URL to Hurt SEO? Weird URL pointing at my Domaine!
Our ranking has drop since a few weeks. I did not do any major change in my site. Surfing WebMaster Tool, I found lots of new URL linking at our site: url.org linkarena.com seoprofiler.com folkd.com digitalhome.ca bustingprice.com surepurchase.com lowpricetoday.com oyax.com couponfollow.com aspringcleaning.com pamabuy.com etzone.ca How do I find if those was done intentionelly to hurt SEO? Could it be possible? Thank you, BigBlaze
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BigBlaze2050 -
URL Error or Penguin Penalty?
I am currently having a major panic as our website www.uksoccershop.com has been largely dropped from Google. We have not made any changes recently and I am not sure why this is happening, but having heard all sorts of horror stories of penguin update, I am fearing the worst. If you google "uksoccershop" you will see that the homepage does not rank. We previously ranked in the top 3 for "football shirts" but now we don't, although on page 2, 3 and 4 you will see one of our category pages ranking (this didn't used to happen). Some rankings are intact, but many have disappeared completely and in some cases been replaced by other pages on our site. I should point out our existing rankings have been consistently there for 5-6 years until today. I logged into webmaster tools and thankfully there is no warning message from Google about spam, etc, but what we do have is 35,000 URL errors for pages which are accessible. An example of this is: | URL: | http://www.uksoccershop.com/categories/5_295_327.html | | Error details In Sitemaps Linked from Last crawled: 6/20/12First detected: 6/15/12Googlebot couldn't access the contents of this URL because the server had an internal error when trying to process the request. These errors tend to be with the server itself, not with the request. Is it possible this is the cause of the issue (we are not currently sure why the URL's are being blocked) and if so, how severe is it and how recoverable?If that is unlikely to cause the issue, what would you recommend our next move is?All help is REALLY REALLY appreciated 🙂
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ukss19840 -
URL for New Product
Hi, We run an established website (mindflash.com) selling online training software. We are getting ready to launch a new section of the site where our users can sell their own online training programs. This will be branded as the 'marketplace'. This section will have a main page, category pages, tag pages, search and individual course pages. In our URL structure, I'd love to target the word 'training courses' but I don't want to neglect the product brand either. Is it better to use /training-courses in the marketplace urls or to use /marketplace? Or is it better to use both like /marketplace-training-courses or /marketplace/training-courses? Option 1: Example main section page: mindflash.com/training-courses Example category page: mindflash.com/training-courses/software-training Option 2: Example main section page: mindflash.com/marketplace Example category page: mindflash.com/marketplace/software-training Option 3: Example main section page: mindflash.com/marketplace-training-courses Example category page: mindflash.com/marketplace-training-courses/software-training Option 4: Example main section page: mindflash.com/marketplace/training-courses Example category page: mindflash.com/marketplace/training-courses/software-training Which option is better and why?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mindflash0 -
Dynamic URLs Appearing on Google Page 1\. Convert to Static URLs or not?
Hi, I have a client who uses dynamic URLs thoughout his site. For SEO purposes, I've advised him to convert dynamic URLs to static URLs whenever possible. However, the client has a few dynamic URLs that are appearing on Google Page 1 for strategically valuable keywords. For these URLs, is it still worth it to 301 them to static URLs? In this case, what are the potential benefits and/or pitfalls?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mindflash0 -
Changing my url name? Should I do it?
Hi, I am targeting a brand called Creative Recreation, who are a trainers brand. We currently rank ok-ish for certain terms for Creative Recreation Trainers, Footwear and Creative Recreation [INSERT STYLE NAME HERE]. Our main search term I think we would like to improve on is "creative recreation trainers" as we are 6th for this. Our domain name points to the brands page as designerboutique-online.com/all-clothing/creative-recreation/ Now what I want to know is, would it be worthwhile or would it affect my current rank/index if I changed the end of that url to read /creative-recreation-trainers/ thus getting the keyword phrase in the url? Creative-Recreation is a hard one to crack as you have a lot of competition from the brands site etc.. Any ideas on this? Cheers Will
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | YNWA0