How to Track 2nd and 3rd Tier Engines in Google Analytics
One of the biggest hesitations that any advertiser has about joining 2nd and 3rd tier engines is tracking quality of traffic. This is a valid concern as any smart advertiser will focus on traffic quality and not quantity. While implementing the search engine’s conversion tracking is best practice, it can be very frustrating and time consuming. This is mainly due to having multiple interfaces tracking data, no insights on engagement metrics and the fact that too much conversion tracking on a page can weigh it down. So what is the best and quickest way for you to track 2nd and 3rd tier engines and get all the data you need to make educated decisions? Google Analytics Tracking….
Google Analytics has made huge strides in becoming the best FREE platform for tracking all your on-site analytics. If you have GA implemented on your site, you can use URL parameters to segment the data from each engine, referral and email marketing effort that you are currently using. What is great about GA is that, once parameters are in place, you are able to track all conversion numbers in one place, get engagement / e-commerce statistics from ALL online efforts and not worry about having ten different conversion tags on your thank you page. So how do you create the URL parameters needed for tracking all these efforts? The Google URL Builder tool:
https://ga-dev-tools.appspot.com/campaign-url-builder/
By entering in the information that is requested on Google’s URL builder, then taking the tracking parameter it generates, you can start tracking new efforts immediately. This will save you and your web developer tons of stress and implementation time. The main lesson is that don’t let conversion tracking prevent you from testing new engines, if you have Google Analytics in place you can get all the relevant data you need to see if new efforts are paying off…
