Watier Ong Strategies

Main Nav

  • Home
  • About
    • Our Results and Case Studies
    • Clients
    • Approach
    • Values
    • Katherine Watier Ong Speaker Info
      • Published Thought Leadership
  • Services
    • Technical SEO Services
    • Traffic Loss Investigation
    • SEO for Associations and Academic Journals
    • Video Optimization
    • Voice Search and Wearable Tech Optimization Services
    • White Label SEO Audit Services
    • Google Analytics Audits
  • Training
    • Member Login
    • SEO Coaching
    • Technical SEO Training
    • SEO Bootcamp Course Registration
    • SEO Bootcamp Course
      • SEO Bootcamp Course questions
  • Testimonials
  • Resources
    • Free Member Resources Opt-in
    • Blog
    • Digital Marketing Resources
    • Digital Marketing How-To Videos
  • Podcasts
    • Daily SEO Tips
    • Digital Marketing Victories
  • Contact
Don’t show this message again.

This website uses cookies

We use cookies to personalize content and functionality, as well as to improve our services. You can read more about how cookies are used to improve the user experience here.

You are here: Home / Google Analytics / Please call it social media: Social media UTM tracking gone awry

Please call it social media: Social media UTM tracking gone awry

February 27, 2018 by Katherine Watier-Ong Leave a Comment

Ok. Let’s talk social media UTM tracking.  If you’re unfamiliar with what UTM tracking is in Google Analytics, please read this first.

Now that we’re all on the same page – it’s time for a Public Service Announcement.

I am seeing clients getting way too creative with their UTM tagging and as a result, they are limiting the usefulness of their Google Analytics reporting.

If you are seeing a category called “other” in your Google Analytics channel grouping reports, your UTM tracking might be off and there might be a very simple reason why. 

Here’s the type of thing you DON’T want to see and that should lead you to take another look at your UTM tracking:

Google Analytics - other in Channel reports

In many cases, the channel grouping report is not capturing all the social media traffic coming to a site because the UTM tracking is re-assigning the creatively tagged social media traffic, rendering it unreadable by Google. Those visits get put into the “other” traffic bucket in your acquisition reporting.

In order for Google Analytics to recognize and properly file social media traffic appropriately in the “social” channel in the reporting, the medium (tag) needs to be one of the following labels:

social, social-network, social-media, sm, social network, social media

All other label variations, including [brand]socialmedia for example, will automatically be reassigned to the “other” channel.

If you are interested in tracking just your site’s social media posts and how successful they are in driving traffic to the website, you should modify the UTM campaign content variable, NOT the medium (see above).

In UTM tracking,

The campaign name:

Should be the name of your overall marketing campaign push. For example,  you could use the campaign variable fall2018ask which you will then push out to your audience via multiple channels.

In UTM tracking,

The source:

This is the platform the link is pushed out onto – for example, Facebook, Google, newsletter, etc.

It’s best to track all of your tracked links that have UTM tagging in them, and Annie Cushing has a great UTM tracking spreadsheet that you can use to organize your tagging efforts.

The campaign content:

Can be whatever you like. It’s often used for differentiating two types of display ads, but it can also be used to track content that you put paid promotion behind on social media (for example) vs something that you just post and see how it performs organically.

What’s the impact of clean channel reporting?

It powers these powerful reports that help you make decisions about which marketing effort is delivering the most ROI:

Multi-Channel Funnel Grouping Assisted Conversions:

Google Analytics Assisted Conversion Reports

Top conversion paths:

And conversion model comparison reporting:

So, if you are creating UTM tags, make sure to use the default labels that Google can read for “medium” to ensure the reporting is clean and accurate. You can find a full list of what those default labels are in Google Analytics’ help files here.

Happy measuring!

Filed Under: Google Analytics Tagged With: social media, utm tracking

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Search This Website

Topics

Get a Free SEO Consultation

For a free 15-minute consultation schedule a time here

Find Katherine online

  • My Resume
  • Linkedin
  • Twitter
  • Pinterest
  • Facebook
  • Moz.com
  • Quora
  • YouTube
  • Podcast Feed

Subscribe to our YouTube Channel

Recent Posts

  • Why .govs need an SEO strategy
  • Google Analytics 4 – The 411
  • A look back at 2021, and some 2022 optimism.
  • Sharing a Googlebot Persona With Your Developers
  • Featured Snippets Writing Guide

Check out our podcasts!

Daily SEO Tips

155 episodes

Digital Marketing Victories

20 episodes

Subscribe to get future blog posts and monthly search updates

Follow Katherine

  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Industry Presence

Find out more about Katherine’s contributions to the Digital Marketing industry.

Digital Marketing Victories Podcast

  • Listen to my Digital Marketing Victories Podcast

Get a free SEO consultation

For a free consultation call 202-930-1744

Federal Capabilities Statement

Download our federal capabilities statement
Sign up for our monthly newsletter to get updates on all things SEO.

© 2023 Watier Ong (WO) Strategies LLC - A WASHINGTON, DC DIGITAL MARKETING FIRM