Summary
Within Google Analytics, a campaign is generally considered a tracked method by which users reach your site. This may be a link from an any medium – an email newsletter, a paid advertisement, a social media post, or even a link from another web site. The key, though, is that these incoming links are tracked through a specifically crafted URL. You have probably seen these without realizing what they are. For example, links from the Texas A&M Today newsletter use the campaign code
?utm_source=today&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=[yyyy-mm-dd]&utm_content=[title of article]
- While the next section describes the various campaign codes, it is much easier to use Google’s URL Builder to create your URLs.
Campaign Codes and their Uses
Google has a list of possible variables to pass in the campaign code. Some of them are required, others are optional.
Source: utm_source – required. This is the overall label that you want to use for the campaign. It describes where the traffic is coming from.
Campaign Medium: utm_medium – required. This describes what the referring traffic is coming from. Examples include email, social, banner, cpc (cost per click, paid advertisement) and so forth.
Campaign Name: utm_campaign – required. Used to identify the specific campaign by name. This may or may not be similar to the source, depending on whether it is a one time event or part of a recurring set of posts.
Campaign Term: utm_term – optional. Used primarily to define paid advertisement keywords.
Campaign Content: utm_content – optional. Short description of the content on the referring page. Often used to differentiate one campaign from another from the same source.
Note: When you enter your URL, you need to escape special characters. The most common of these is probably the ampersand (&) and the space (+). If you use Google’s URL builder it will create the URL with these already in place.