What is Campaign Tracking?
TL;DR
The practice of tagging and organizing marketing efforts for accurate performance measurement. Campaign tracking ensures Google Analytics 4 correctly attributes traffic to specific marketing initiatives rather than lumping everything together. Use UTM Parameters consistently across all marketing links, emails, ads, social posts, QR codes. Establish naming conventions and document them: how do you name campaigns, what values go in source vs. medium, how do you handle variants? Without systematic campaign tracking, you can't answer "which Facebook campaign drove more leads?" or "did the email sequence work?" Organize campaigns around business initiatives (spring-sale, product-launch) rather than tactics (facebook-post-3). This creates meaningful performance comparisons that inform strategy decisions.
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Frequently Asked Questions About Campaign Tracking
Why is campaign tracking important?
Without it, you can't tell which marketing efforts actually work. 'Facebook sent 500 visits' is useless if you can't distinguish which campaign, ad, or post drove them. Proper tracking answers 'which specific effort produced results?'
What should I track with campaign parameters?
Every marketing link you control: email campaigns, social posts, paid ads, QR codes, partner promotions. If you spend time or money on it, track it. Otherwise you're flying blind on what's working.
How do I create campaign tracking conventions?
Document naming rules: how to format campaign names (spring-2024-sale, not 'spring sale'), what goes in source vs. medium, consistent capitalization (facebook not Facebook). Create a shared spreadsheet or template everyone uses.
What's the most common campaign tracking mistake?
Inconsistent naming. 'Facebook' vs 'facebook' vs 'FB' creates three separate sources in reports. 'spring sale' vs 'spring-sale' vs 'SpringSale' fragments data. Establish conventions and enforce them ruthlessly.
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