Google Analytics Campaign Tracking overriding each other
-
Howdy, fellow mozzers.
So, here is the situation:
Let's say someone comes to the website through Organic Google Search, and first thing they see is the banner on the website, on a click of which it takes you to a promotional landing page. I have this banner being tracked with GA campaigns. Now, here are my questions:
- If that user makes a purchase, which source / medium it will be assigned to? Organic/google or website/banner? (as far as i understand it assigns it to website/banner)
- If that's the case, is there way to find out afterwords where the website/banner sessions came initially from?
- If there is no such way, how shall i setup the tracking to be able to see wherre the initial visit to the website came from, yet also track how many people clicked on the banner and made a purchase?
Thanks
-
Essentially, ecommcerce tracking is a more deluxe, in-depth version of event tracking, Dmitrii.
You'll set both up, then use dashboards and reporting to integrate them. For example, you can start by using the Events report to look at all the visits that included a click on the banner, then review the purchase behaviour of those visits. For starters, that will give you the conversion rate of those who clicked on the banner, for example. You'll also be able to compare the sales behaviour of those who clicked on the banners vs those who didn't.
If you configure the label of the banner event to include the URL of the page it was clicked from, you'll even be able to assess which pages' banners provide the best sales, as another example.
Think of ecommerce tracking and event tracking working in concert with each other to show you both what happened before the sale (event tracking) and what happened during the sale (ecommcerce tracking.)
Make sense?
Paul
-
You are right, it can't be used for e-commerce tracking. So what you should do is make sure they can both be set up regardless of each other. Like Paul mentioned, it's incredibly dangerous to start using UTM campaign tracking for internal purposes. 99/100 it's not a good idea to do it like that and event tracking is able to help you out.
-
I see.
Now, as far as i know, the event tracking could be used for goal tracking, but not for ecommerce tracking, or am i wrong?
-
You're making a critical tracking error in this scenario, Dmitrii. You must NEVER use campaign tracking variables on internal links within your site. There aren't many absolutes in Analytics, but this is one of them.
When the visitor clicks on that banner under your current scenario, they are being registered as a completely new session with the new campaign-based referrer info. This does damage at two levels:
- It is artificially increasing your session count by a significant margin
- it is stripping the real source
Once this damage has been done, there's no way to recover the original referrer info for the purchaser.
Fortunately, there is a built-in system in Analytics to do what you want. For tracking actions that happen within your website, you need to use Event Tracking instead of campaign parameters. You will add an event tracking trigger to the banner clicks so that their clicks can be recorded within Analytics without polluting your other data. This tracking can be added in a number of ways including manually (using an onclick event) or the highly recommended method of integration though Google Tag Manager. This keeps the original source/medium of your visitors untouched, while adding the info about their banner click to the cllickstream.
This same event-tracking process should be added to all other major and minor conversion events on the site - form submissions, file downloads, page scroll depth, video views etc - so that you can truly track and understand the valuable actions visitors take within the site that aren't tracked with pageviews.
Hope that helps?
Paul
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
-
I am confuse with google analytic custom and segment report
Hi All, In google analytic when I create custom report for my ecommerce site then figures go mad. I really not able to judge peformance of device, browser and it's version, conversion, ecommerce conversion rate etc. same way if I add secondary dimension in report then also figures are not accurate. Again when I create different segment like desktop, mobile, tablet then in tablet segment mobile devices comes and in mobile device tablet appear why segment also not accurate? Is it because I am using free version? Also do we have alternative of google analytic which give same report like google analytic either device, browser, os, segment, enhance ecommerce etc? Thanks!
Reporting & Analytics | | dhisman0 -
Two of Four Google Analytics Views Not Showing Data
Question for you MOZ friends: We added two new views about a week ago, the same views that we have added for more than 50 Accounts, and they are not showing any data. The views are for 'Filtered Traffic' (no IPs or spam) and 'Organic Only' including only the organic medium. Any ideas why this may not be working? First time we've come across this and couldn't find much help researching it... Thanks as always! street%20ga_zpsorfdnemi.png
Reporting & Analytics | | ReunionMarketing0 -
Google Analytics - Adding a sub-domain
Hi I have a google analytics query.
Reporting & Analytics | | Niki_1
I have a main site with a google analytics tag and I have 2 forms that sit on a subdomain with a different GA code. As I would like to measure end to end tracking, I would like the same GA code on the subdomain. What is the best way for me to implement this? Would I need to make some changes to the GA code that sits on the main site or can I add the the GA code from the main site onto the subdomain? Thanks0 -
Conversion via Paypal not showing order value in google analytics
Hello All, I have an e commerce site, when goal conversion happens by CC(credit card) I can see order value in e commerce tab in Google analytics but when conversion happens through paypal I always see order value zero. I want see order value for Pay pal also.Please help me out. Thanks
Reporting & Analytics | | Alick3000 -
Has anyone experienced Google Analytics track the page visit to a "thank you" page, but not the goal conversion?
Has anyone experienced where Google Analytics would track the page visit to a "thank you" page, but not the goal conversion that should result? The goal had worked for a long time as it is as just a goal url with head match. No funnel. Not case sensitive. For about four days now, no conversions have been recorded, but Google Analytics shows hundreds of people visited the page that should trigger the goal. Additionally, we have received the hundreds of leads. A Screaming Frog search shows the code is embedded throughout the site. For the interested, the GA code looks like (and the 8 Xs are the correct number on the site): Am I missing something?
Reporting & Analytics | | 352inc0 -
Google Analytics: Deleted Profile
Has anyone ever successfully managed to have a deleted GA profile restored? One of our client's profiles was deleted accidentally. I know the official line is it can't be restored, but...
Reporting & Analytics | | David_ODonnell0 -
Setting up Google Analytic Goals to a 3rd Party Site
I recently received help on a question I asked on SEOmoz but need additional clarification. I am trying to set up goals in Google Analytics for people who click on a “purchase botton” which sends them to PayPal. I created a Thank You page and tried to get PayPal to redirect to it, however, our customers only get to our site’s 404 page. Here is what I’ve done so far: Went into my PayPal account and turned the “Auto Return” to ‘on’ Under website payment preferences, I added the following URL http://www.teecycle.org/thank-youutm_nooverride1. (I formatted the URL this way because the person who provided me with help recommended using the format ?UTM_nooverride=1. However, our CMS system won’t allow “?” or “=”)
Reporting & Analytics | | EricVallee340