Google URL Builder – How to Use the Google Link Tool
You may have Google Analytics installed. You may even have it connected to webmasters tools, but how much do you really know about the people coming to your website? Google UTM (Urchin Tracking Module) is the next layer of analytics that anyone who shares links via email or social should be thinking about.
You may already feel like it’s WAY OVER YOUR HEAD. Honestly, until this article I didn’t know what UTM stood for and rarely do I every say the phrase UTM. The phrase I’m most familiar with is the one I want to share with you and that is the Google URL Builder. The Google URL Builder allows for you to include link specific information that Google Analytics will parse and store when people click on those unique links.
These special links created with the Google URL Builder will help you learn more about your visitors such as:
- What platform did a user come from? (email, social, YouTube, website credit, etc.)
- What ad, banner, link, etc. did they actually click on? (think, which of my posts was more effective)
- How long did users who cam from EMAIL clicking on SPECIFIC AD spend on my website
- What pages did a user view when they came from an email link vs pages the user viewed when they came from Facebook. Same landing page, different behavior flow.
Understanding your website stats could very well be the thing that stands between keeping and losing your job. It could be the factor in retaining influence or say within your organization’s strategic planning. YOU MUST be able to say with certainty that what you are doing is working.
In the video, I demonstrate how I am dabbing into Google URL Builder in effort to have an elevated awareness to answer the question, “in regards to what I am doing, what is working and what is not? What is leading to signups and what is not? What is lending to newsletter opt-ins and what is not.”
This is a great resource, I’ve been using google url builder for years. One thing you can do is use bitly link shortener to make these urls more appealing and not so crazy. One tip, don’t limit the use of google url builder to online items. You can shorten the link and use it on printed material to see how effective they actually are.
Love that, thanks A.J.!