Email traffic tracking in Google Analytics

[SmileMoreSEO]

Hello!

I have a question about how to assure email traffic is properly tracked in GA > Acquisition > All Traffic > Channels.

**First, some background... ** Our company (Wisconsin's largest group dental practice) is about to revamp the way we try to re-capture patients who don't have a future appointment set with us. Part of that process will include emails. Those emails will point back to our website to request an appointment.

Now to the question... Is there anything special we should do to assure that links coming to the website and the resulting appointment request goal conversions track appropriately and appear under "Email" in the Default Channel Group of Analytics > Acquisition > All Traffic > Channels area of GA?

For example, should we use Campaign URL Builder to establish UTM links?

Thanks in advance for any feedback.

Erik

[SmileMoreSEO]

Thanks for the confirmation, Ruth.

I do keep a spreadsheet of all the UTM links we've created to stay organized. It's invaluable.

Thanks again,
Erik

[ThompsonPaul]

Yup - as Ruth says - this is exactly what UTM parameters are for.

It's critical that you taq ALL links in the email and not just the first ones (as can happen when in a hurry). Any untagged links will result in a significant amount of the traffic from that link being recorded as Direct traffic on GA and will pollute your results. (And some will record as referral, still messing up your goal tracking.)

[RuthBurrReedy]

Hi Erik,

It's great you're thinking about this ahead of time! Using the Campaign URL Builder to establish UTM links is the best way to do this. You'll want to make sure that your Medium is set to email (not e-mail, or that will be counted as a different Medium). I recommend keeping a running tracking document of the Source, Campaign, Term, etc. you use for each campaign, so it's easy to keep track of which thing was named what. You may also want to sit down and figure out some naming conventions for how you'll determine these, so that multiple people can use the URL Builder the same way. I hope that helps!

[Vijay-Gaur]

Hi Erik,

This might help

https://moz.com/blog/guide-to-direct-traffic-google-analytics

Regards,

Vijay