Tracking URL: Harnessing Precision Analytics for Campaign Success

Understanding Tracking Links

The Base of the URL. This is also known as the URL page address.

The Tracking Parameter Strings: This is what follows the Base URL. These include the UTM parameters mentioned previously:

• Campaign: Tracking a campaign could be a series of social media posts or blogs referring to a particular topic. The Tracking URL includes the name of the campaign so that reporting platforms can gather this information and reflect the particular data.
• Medium: This is a very general source type. For example, social, organic, paid traffic, etc.
• Content: This part of the Tracking URL defines the ingredient to which traffic can be attributed. The content can be a hyperlink, a button, or an image.
• Source: This is the portion of the URL that includes the source where the traffic is coming from. The appearance of this last part of the URL will look like this: utm_source=facebook

Let’s break it down:

If the URL created is the following:

https://www.example.com/landing-page?utm_campaign=ExampleCampaign1&utm_content=EmailA&utm_source=email

We can identify the following:

Base for the URL: [https://www.example.com/landing-page?](https://www.example.com/landing-page?utm_campaign=ExampleCampaign1&utm_content=Email&utm_source=email)

Tracking parameter string:

Campaign: utm_campaign=ExampleCampaign1

Content: utm_content=EmailA

Source: utm_source=email

(Note how all of these are united by the “&” symbol.)

When the name of the campaign, source, or content has blank spaces between them, the following code will appear between %20.

Example: utm_content=social%20media%20post%201

Creating Tracking URLs

HubSpot is an exceptional tool for creating Tracking URLs. It may seem complex, but it enables marketers to concatenate all the information from different channels attributed to one campaign, essentially making it a URL tracking powerhouse. To create HubSpot tracking URLs, go to Reports > Analytics Tools > Tracking URL Builder > Create tracking URL.

For a visual representation, you may view the image below:

To set up a tracking URL, it is necessary that you enter a valid URL for your page in the URL field (include http:// or https://). This can be the URL of any page with the HubSpot tracking code on it.

• The UTM Campaign is a dropdown menu. Here you will get to select the HubSpot campaign you want to track visits from this URL.
• UTM Source is a second dropdown menu where you will select the source for your tracking URL. To find out about how HubSpot organizes sources, you may review HERE.
• The UTM Medium field is optional. Enter the name of the banner ad, social post, email, etc. This is typically the last visible parameter in the tracking URLs that you build in HubSpot.
• The UTM Term field is optional as well. It is usually used in systems like AdWords and Google Analytics to track the keywords in a PPC ad.
• The UTM Content can be as simple as a name for an ad. You might want to do this if you have multiple ads on your page and want to differentiate between them.

Once the Tracking URL has been created, you will be able to list all of the created ones on the “Tracking URL Builder” page.