If you are a smaller company, association, or non-profit and don’t have a massive budget, you may think your options are limited to track your audience. Google analytics may be on your radar, but that’s about it. There are some other inexpensive options out there to help tell a more complete story of where people are coming from and how they interact with your content once they get to you.

Urchin Tracking Module (UTM) codes are just additional information at the end of a URL that sends Google information that you can then track.

Why UTMs?

• UTM codes are used to capture data that Google Analytics alone cannot track. For example, you may have an ad campaign and several of your marketing tactics involved social media ads and email blasts. Using UTMs, you can track the activity of each ad. You will be able to analyze where traffic is coming from within Google Analytics – broken down by the parameters you set.

What does this mean in real life?

• If someone clicks on an ad and is directed to a landing page, you would typically get the ad clicks from the vendor from whom you purchased the ad and you could probably see the number of visitors to your page in google analytics. UTM codes allow you to see beyond that, and find out where those visitors are going after they visit your landing page. Maybe they are checking out videos, or looking at product tech sheets.

How to get started?

• To get started with UTM codes, you can use a URL builder tool to create tracking URLs, which can be done from the Google Campaign URL Builder. Check out this video about UTM codes if you would like to get deeper into the technical details.

Scan a QR code with your phone to instantly reach web content without having to type in a long address. The accessibility is super helpful for use on flyers and mailers to make life easier for your audience to find you online, but it also provides trackability for you.

What does this mean in real life?

• You can know whenever someone accesses your site from a specific QR code. For example, if you are sending out a mailer, you will be able to tell how many people visited a page on your site from that mailer. If you want to go even further, pair the QR code with a UTM and you’ll be able to tell where those people went on your site beyond the initial landing page.

How to get started?

• What platform should you go with? It depends on your budget and what you need out of the service. This article gives a breakdown of some of the things to look out for when choosing your provider. At minimum, you will most likely need your QR code to be updatable. It’s incredibly frustrating to be stuck with a free version of a QR code that won’t let you update a link.
• Regardless of platform, It’s important to keep track of how and where you used your QR codes so that you know which codes you can safely retire over time. The data won’t be helpful in the long term unless it is organized in a way that is easy to find.

Excited about these tools but don’t have the time or know-how to implement them? We can help with that! Get in touch and we would be happy to chat about your next project.