If you’re running campaigns such as Google Search, Google Display, Facebook Conversions, etc., through Landing Pages, you’re likely familiar with the five UTM Tracking Parameters, such as utm_source, utm_medium, utm_campaign, utm_term, and utm_content.
However, relying solely on these five parameters for tracking can pose several limitations for your business in its day-to-day operations. For instance, manual reporting can be time-consuming, and you may not fully exploit customer insights.
In this article, I will introduce you to additional Custom Parameters (in addition to the five UTMs mentioned above). Alongside that, I’ll provide detailed insights into new methods for collecting attribution data from users, enabling your business to have more fields of information to analyze and optimize your marketing campaigns.
Part 1: Traffic Source Types (from Marketing Channels)
Paid Traffic
In the context of this article, I want to specifically address campaign activities through various Digital Ad Networks such as Google Ads, Facebook Ads, Twitter Ads, Adroll, Taboola, etc.
While there may not be concrete statistics to prove it, based on my own observations, I’ve noticed that many marketers still use only the basic 5 UTM Parameters for tracking these sources. To me, that’s a waste of data because you can collect more than just these 5 types of data to analyze various campaign metrics further.
This is precisely the crucial content I want to help you understand better in this article. I will explain this in detail in part 2 of this article.
Organic SEO / Direct Traffic
Organic SEO is traffic that comes from natural keyword search sources like Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.
Direct traffic is when users directly input a URL into their browser to access a website.
For these two sources of traffic, most companies do not have a method to track because tracking links cannot be used. Therefore, in many cases, if users do not have attribution data, companies will lump them into Organic SEO and Direct categories. However, such logic seems temporary and inaccurate.
Fortunately, I have found a way to accurately attribute these two sources of traffic, and I will share it with you in the FOURTH article of this series.
Social & Other Traffic
This section is about all traffic sources that do not fall into the above two categories. It could include various social media channels, owned media, and paid media in the form of bookings, such as PR, community posts, backlinks, KOLs, etc or Email…
For this type of channel, the basic 5 UTM Parameters are typically sufficient for tracking, so I won’t delve deeper into it.
Other Sources
The diversity of running sources varies from company to company. Sometimes, companies have to build a Custom Tracking system to fit their business model.
For example, my company, Markets.com, runs an affiliate model and has a unique tracking system for this business model.
Due to the diversity, I won’t be able to provide detailed recommendations for this traffic group.
If you’re running an unusual channel and haven’t figured out an effective tracking method, don’t hesitate to send me an email. I’d be happy to help you find a solution.
The above are the four common types of traffic encountered in businesses. Within the scope of this article series, I will share details about:
- Paid Traffic This will be explained in part 2 below and will have a separate article to guide you on how to set it up.
- Organic SEO / Direct Traffic This will be covered in a separate article as well.
Part 2: Paid Traffic: Why Are 5 UTM Parameters Not Enough? How to Collect More User Data?
Why do we need additional tracking parameters?
Because the 5 UTM Parameters provide very limited data, limiting the ability to analyze the insights of your advertising campaigns.
Let’s take an example when you are running Google Ads (Search):
From the example in the image, we can clearly see two benefits of collecting additional data:
Benefit 1: Having more data to analyze
As you can see, with additional tracking parameters, you will gather more user data, such as Keywords, Match Type, Placement, Device…
If your company has a data team (or developers knowledgeable in data), they can generate reports like the ones below. As a marketer, do you find these reports useful and convenient for analyzing your campaigns?
Benefit 2: Automating reports
It not only stops at providing insights but also helps you create detailed reporting systems, including cost reports (you don’t have to spend time creating reports manually anymore).
Or you can even dig deeper into each ad group or ad within each campaign.
To help you understand more, here’s how we technically create the mentioned reports (Data Analysts and Developers should read):
- Retrieve cost data segmented by campaign id (name), campaign id (name), keywords… from the Ad Network.
- Combine this data with the attribution table (fields collected from custom parameters mentioned above).
- Continue to combine with other business data such as leads, sales… to produce reports.
Conclusion:
So, we’ve come to the end of the article introducing tracking links. I’ve also helped you delve deeper into the additional Custom Parameters and their benefits.
If you are running Facebook Ads, Google Ads, or similar channels on a website platform, I recommend reading the next article and following my instructions. It may take a little effort for the initial setup, but it will save you a lot of operational time and increase work efficiency in the future.
