Using Campaign URL Builder & Bitly to Track Your Links

What is Campaign URL Builder?

Google Analytics has developed a tool that allows you to easily add campaign parameters to URLs so you can track Custom Campaigns in Google Analytics. This means you can personalise your links to track where your website clicks/actions have come from.

How do I personalise my links?

There are five fields you can use to personalise your links:

• Campaign Source
• Campaign Medium
• Campaign Name
• Campaign Term
• Campaign Context

The main fields I like to use are the campaign source, medium and name. In this example, I am creating a link for our Instagram Bio so I can track exactly how many sessions the homepage of our website is getting from this link.

Why are trackable links important?

Being able to see where your link clicks have come from is very important because it allows you to see how people are getting to your website. This can help you understand where to spend your marketing budget and which channels to advertise on. For example, if you found you were seeing a large volume of traffic coming from links on your Facebook page you might want to start paid advertisements to encourage more link clicks/purchases.

Can I shorten my links?

Making your links trackable is very important but it can make your links very long. Bitly.com is a website that offers a tool to shorten your links to make them look more visually appealing when posted on social platforms. You can do this by creating a FREE account and pasting your link into the shortener. It will then generate a short link starting with https://bit.ly/ followed by a unique code e.g. https://bit.ly/2E1ek6W. If you are a brand you can purchase brand short domains that replace “bit.ly” in the link to something associated with your brand. But don't worry, shortening your links in Bitly will still keep the tracking you have made in Campaign URL Builder.