![]() ![]() UTM links on internal pagesįor instance, if a UTM parameter is added to a website’s link that is pointing to another page within that same website. They are also very good at corrupting traffic data in Google Analytics if used incorrectly. ![]() They are extremely helpful in enabling Google Analytics to accurately report the source of traffic coming to a site when it couldn’t natively acquire that data. Traffic that clicked on this link would be tracked as “google my business / organic”. The website could use the following URL on its Google My Business listing to better classify that traffic within Google Analytics: Google Analytics will natively report anyone clicking on a Google My Business listing link as “google / organic”, however it will not specify that it was a Google My Business listing that was the source of the traffic. UTM parameters, or “urchin tracking modules” are parameters that can be added to a link to provide referral source data.įor example, the following website “” wants to be able to identify when a visitor arrives on its site by clicking on a Google My Business listing link. Sometimes Google Analytics gets this wrong.Īs a result, we see traffic being categorised as “referral” when in fact is would be better categorised as “social” or “affiliate”. Google Analytics identifies the source of traffic coming to a website through the referral source information which is transferred by the browser when the visitor arrives at the website. There are several common problems that are often seen in Google Analytics accounts that have been left to run for a period of time without auditing. T.co is actually traffic from Twitter which has clicked on a link which uses the platform’s URL shortener.īoth of these examples show data issues that would need cleaning up in this Google Analytics account. It is not genuine traffic and therefore will be polluting the data available in Google Analytics. Getbottraffic4free.xyz is a spam bot sending traffic to the website. For instance, in the screenshot above you can see there are two sources labelled as “referral” getbottraffic4free.xyz and t.co. Essentially, you need to look through your source and medium categories and look to see if anything does not seem right to you. There’s no scientific method to what we’re about to do. Take a look at your sources and mediums, this is the starting point of your audit. Set your time period to a decent length of time, either from the date of your last Google Analytics traffic audit or at least 6 months. The best first step in auditing your Google Analytics traffic sources is by going to “Acquisition” > “All Traffic” > “Source/Medium”. It is important to regularly audit your Google Analytics account to identify if any traffic sources are being categorised incorrectly or over-reported. Over time issue creep in, polluting data and causing insight to become muddied. Google Analytics needs some fine-tuning to ensure it is accurately tracking your data. We use it to identify problems and trends. We rely on Google Analytics to prove our worth as marketers.
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