How do I use Link Tracking?

This article contains the following sections:

• What are some Link Tracking scenarios?
• How do I create Link Tracking Rules?
• How do I use Link Tracking Rules?
• How do I edit my Tracking Rules?
• What are some Link Tracking Tips?
• How do I view my Link tracking data in Google Analytics?

What are some Link Tracking scenarios?

Sprout Coffee wants to measure traffic from the brand’s social channels to the site www.sproutcoffee.com/careers for the announcement of a new set of open roles. As a result, the social media manager needs to create Link Tracking rules to ensure the traffic gets captured.

To get started, the social media manager names the parameter set and then selects Custom Value for the utm_campaign parameter and enters Recruitment.

For utm_source, they’ll leave the value as the default Social Network. The source shows as the name of the network the post is published to. For example, the source appears as “X” when publishing to X. If they were publishing to multiple networks, the networks appear in alphabetical order in a list separated by commas.

For utm_medium, they’ll change the value to Social Account because any incoming traffic is resulting from posts to one of the social channels.

For utm_content, they'll leave the default as a Unique ID for the value. This means Sprout generates a unique ID every time the link is used, so any incoming traffic is attributed to specific outgoing messages.

Next, they'll enter www.sproutcoffee.com/careers in URL Matching and review a live preview of the link to verify the correct tracking information appears. They’ll click Save to save the tracking rules. Now whenever the link www.sproutcoffee.com/careers is added to Compose, the Link Tracking rules are automatically applied and traffic is captured in Google Analytics.

Additional scenarios include:

• A company wants to easily roll up all social traffic to their domain from posts published in Sprout within Google Analytics so that they can see it as a single channel.
• A marketing manager asks a community manager to promote the launch of a new product and wants to easily track conversions on the new website without the community manager having to think about it at all.
• A community manager wants to compare the conversions occurring as a result of posting to individual networks at one time vs. multiple times.

How do I create Link Tracking rules?

With these rules, you can specify the social network, account and other values to ensure you’re properly tracking links. 

To create new Link tracking rules:

1. Navigate to Settings > Publishing > Link Tracking.
   
   

2. Click Add Parameter set. The Add Link Tracking Parameters pop up appears.

3. Give your parameter set a Name.
4. Define your default parameters. Default parameters include the campaign name, source and medium. To do this:
   1. Select the value you want to use from the dropdown. Choose from:
      • Social Network
      • Social Account
      • Message Tags
      • Unique ID
      • First 25 Characters of Post
      • Custom Value
   2. Enter any additional information for the value you select.
   3. Select whether to enable or disable the parameter.
5. (Optional) To define any custom parameters:
   1. Specify a parameter name of at most 100 characters.
   2. Select the value you want to use from the dropdown.
   3. Enter any additional information for the value you select.
6. (Optional) Enter the URL you want to track in URL Matching. This parameter set automatically applies to a URL within Compose if it matches the URL input here.
   • Note: The URL you enter in Compose must be an exact match to the URL you specify in the URL tracking rules.
7. Preview the link.
8. Click Save.

If you want your link tracking to apply to each network, add the dynamic parameter value Social Network in your link. An exception to this is if you shorten your link in a multi-network post before you publish. When you shorten links, it combines the tracking to include all networks selected in your post. Either leave your links un-shortened or use the Schedule + Duplicate workflow to schedule and shorten each link individually.

How do I use Link Tracking rules?

If you have added a URL to URL Matching in your parameter set, the UTM parameters automatically populate when you enter the exact link in Compose.

If you haven't added a URL to URL Matching in your parameter set, you can add the UTM parameters to any link in Compose:

1. Click the link in Compose.
2. Select Edit in the Edit Link Tracking pop up.
3. Choose a saved parameter set from the dropdown.
4. Preview the link.
5. Click Save.