Track Emails with Google Analytics

(This was posted 6 months, 1 week, 15 hours, 41 minutes's ago.)

Here is a thought, if you use Google Analytics do you know the number of people that click on a website link from places like your email signature?

Chances are you can’t or rather don’t.

Let’s think about your emails... How many do you send? In a given week how many emails are sent to existing clients, to prospects or to service providers?

Wouldn’t it be nice if the link to your website in your email signature could identify where it came from?

I like to think that the better I understand how and where the visitors to my website have come from the better placed I am to understand my website.

So here is what I do...

My email signature contains a link to the Thinking Virtually website. When somebody follows that link I know that it came from my email signature as Google Analytics records the Source, Media and Campaign.

Here are the things you need to decide on:

Name for Source – for me that is ‘davidemailsig’

Type of Media – in this case we identify it as ‘email

Name of Campaign – we kind of cheat here as we simply call is ‘davidemailsig’

So my signature shows www.thinkingvirtually.co.uk but when you click on it you are sent to www.thinkingvirtually.co.uk/?utm_source=davidemailsig&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=davidemailsig.

Right, so now do one for yourself.

Source: ?utm_source=your-source

&utm_medium=your-media

&utm_campaign=your-campaign

To make life even easier Google have provided a page that will create the link! Click here to get started.

What if I don’t do this?

Then nothing will change. However Google Analytics records email click though vists as ‘Direct Traffic’ (unless clicked on through Google Mail).

Suppose 90% of your direct traffic is from your email signature, would this make you think differently about your email signature? Would you consider what is said and the possibility of adding offers there as well?

If you don’t do it you won’t lose as you’ll never know. Spend 10 mins and do it and you’ll start capturing data and you will know – even better is now you can start playing with it!

I know if somebody has visited my site because of links in my emails – do you?