Tracking Social Traffic with Google Analytics in Sprout Social | Sprout Bites

If you've ever shared a link on social and thought, "I wonder if anyone actually visited my site?", this one's for you. Hi, my name is Sam, and in this Sprout Bites video, I will walk you through how to track your social media traffic using Sprout's Google Analytics integration.

One question many of us have in social isn't just "Did they see it?" It's "Did they act?" One method to help quantify this is link tracking, or adding UTM parameters to our links. Two important ones are utm_source and utm_medium, which tell us which platform people clicked from and which channel, respectively. Sprout's Bitly integration also helps shorten the link while keeping all of that tracking data intact underneath.

Setting that up isn't our focus today. What we're here for is where all of that data lands, and that is Sprout's Google Analytics report. To get there, head to the Reports section in Sprout and select Google Analytics from the list.

Let's take a look at what you'll find here. At the top, you can set your date range. Choose a week's worth of data, a month, or a custom range. The primary metric you'll see here is sessions: the number of times someone clicked a link from one of your social posts and landed on your website. You'll also get a breakdown of those sessions by source, so you can see which social channels are actually sending people your way.

If you have more than one GA4 property connected in Sprout, you can filter by property from this menu.

Seeing clearly and cleanly where your social traffic is coming from is key to shaping your strategy. And it's the kind of clarity that gives your social work the receipts it deserves.