Yes, it’s a long title for an Excel Spreadsheet used to create utm tracking scheme variables for Google Analytics. I’m just doing a tiny bit of keyword stuffing here so the page gets found and people can use the spreadsheet I made if they like.
The Poor Site’s Tracking Method!
The big web sites may be able to afford the high end analytics solutions, but most sites starting out are stuck with love using Google Analytics. It’s an extremely capable product, especially in that it’s free. There’s a variety of other beacon / JavaScript based solutions out there, but I’ve found even those using these tools typically also have Google. In many cases, tracking codes are done for you. For example, if you’re using adwords and have hooked in your accounts properly the gclid variable should show up free, no effort on your part. And over time, Google has added other referrals such as social referrals to help. Moreover, increasingly third parties, (such as sharing tools like AddThis or ShareThis), also make it easier on you. Still, there are times when you just have to make your own. For those times I’ve found a sheet like the one attached below to be useful. Admittedly, it can be a pain to create your original schema and maintain things like this. But it’s not all that bad and once you have things set up, things go pretty quickly.
What’s Different About this Google Analytics URL Builder Spreadsheet?
It’s a fairly comprehensive set of options for creating useful utm variables for Google Analtytics. The concatenation formulas in the Generator tab leave blank spaces if you’re not using a particular variable. So it’s a reasonably fast way to make some Google Analytics Tracking Code enabled links if you’re not just doing it programmatically. I’ve either had to create these myself or had to have other marketing co-workers create proper codes for links. While anyone can go to the Google Analtytics URL Builder, that can become tiresome if you have a lot of them. I made the attached sheet years ago when doing some consulting and have used it at several companies. People seem to like it. (Well, no one really likes the hassle of doing this. But they like that it can give better drill down reporting. So I figured it was time to just put it out there in case it might be useful for others.)
Please note that it’s not the URL builder in this sheet that’s really important. It’s the idea that you create a solid scheme to track what you need to track. You should build your variables with a eye towards how you want your reports – perhaps especially custom reports – to come out. You may find it useful to play with a test site or a few pages you have control over before you have a development team work to programatically embed variables across your whole site.
Anyway, here it is…
(Oh, and obviously you use this at your own risk. Your responsible for configuring your stuff appropriately. I’m not responsible for your reports or coding scheme.)
GoogleAnalytics-TrackingCodes-20150309a.xls
If there’s an errors or you have any suggestions, please let me know.
Scott