How to track your Google or Meta ads campaign performance

 

Campaign URL Tracking

"Campaign URL Tracking" is a super important tool in digital marketing. Imagine you're running different ads, social media posts, and emails to get people to visit your website. How do you know which one is actually bringing in the visitors and helping you reach your goals? That's where Campaign URL Tracking comes in!

What is Campaign URL Tracking?

It's like putting a special label on the links you share online. This label tells you exactly where your website visitors came from and why they came.

• You take your regular website link (like https://www.yourwebsite.com/product).

• You add some special text bits to the end of it (like ?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=ad&utm_campaign=summer_sale).

• This new, longer link still goes to the same page, but now, when someone clicks it, your analytics tool (like Google Analytics) will record all that extra information.

These special text bits are called UTM parameters. They stand for "Urchin Tracking Module" (an old name, but the system stuck!).

Why is it useful?

• Know what's working: You can see which ads, social posts, emails, or even blog articles are bringing the most visitors, leads, or sales.

• Improve your marketing: Once you know what's effective, you can put more money and effort into those campaigns and stop wasting time on things that don't work.

• Measure your return: You can figure out if your marketing spending is actually bringing in good results (Return on Investment - ROI).

How to Use Campaign URL Tracking (Step-by-Step Guide)

The easiest way to do this is by using a Campaign URL Builder tool. Google provides a free one, and many other marketing platforms have their own. We'll use Google's for this example.

Step 1: Get Your Regular Website Link

• First, decide which page on your website you want people to land on. This is your destination URL.

• Example: https://www.yourwebsite.com/my-new-blog-post

Step 2: Go to a Campaign URL Builder

• Open your web browser.

• Go to the Google Analytics Campaign URL Builder: Just search for "Google Campaign URL Builder" or go to https://ga-dev-tools.google/campaign-url-builder/

Step 3: Fill in the Blanks (UTM Parameters)

You'll see a few boxes to fill. These are the UTM parameters that will be added to your link.

• Website URL:* This is your destination URL from Step 1.

• Example: https://www.yourwebsite.com/my-new-blog-post

• Campaign Source (utm_source):* This tells you where the traffic is coming from.

• Think: What is the specific source?

• Examples: facebook, instagram, newsletter, google, youtube, affiliate_partner_name

• For you: If it's a Facebook ad, type facebook. If it's from your email, type newsletter.

• Campaign Medium (utm_medium):* This tells you how the traffic is coming. It's the marketing type or channel.

• Think: What kind of marketing is this?

• Examples: cpc (for paid ads like Google Ads), social (for organic social media posts), email, banner, qr_code

• For you: If it's a paid ad on Facebook, type cpc. If it's a regular post on Instagram, type social. If it's from an email marketing campaign, type email.

• Campaign Name (utm_campaign):* This gives your campaign a specific name. This helps you group related marketing efforts.

• Think: What is the overall campaign or promotion?

• Examples: summer_sale_2025, new_product_launch, blog_promo_july, webinar_signup

• For you: If you're promoting a specific new blog post, you might use new_blog_post_title. If it's a summer sale, summer_sale.

• Campaign Term (utm_term) - Optional: This is mostly used for paid search ads to track keywords.

• Example: best+shoes+online, affordable+web+design

• For you: You probably won't use this often unless you're running Google Ads or other paid search campaigns where you bid on keywords.

• Campaign Content (utm_content) - Optional: This helps you tell the difference between similar ads or links within the same campaign.

• Think: If you have two different banners in the same campaign, or two different buttons in one email.

• Examples: banner_image_a, text_link_button, blue_cta_button

• For you: If you're running two versions of a Facebook ad for the same campaign, you could label one ad_version_A and the other ad_version_B.

Step 4: Copy Your New Tracked URL

• As you fill in the boxes, the tool will automatically build your new, longer URL at the bottom.

• Example of a generated URL:
  https://www.yourwebsite.com/my-new-blog-post?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=new_blog_post_promotion&utm_content=image_post

• Copy this entire new URL.

Step 5: Use the New Tracked URL in Your Marketing!

• Instead of using your original simple link, use this new, longer tracked URL in your:

• Social media posts (Facebook, Instagram, X, LinkedIn, etc.)

• Email marketing campaigns

• Paid advertisements (Google Ads, Facebook Ads, etc. – though Google Ads often has its own auto-tagging)

• Links in guest blog posts or press releases

• QR codes

Step 6: Check Your Data in Google Analytics

• After people start clicking your new tracked links, you can see the results in your Google Analytics account.

• Log in to Google Analytics (GA4 is the current version).

• Go to Acquisition -> Traffic Acquisition.

• You can then look at dimensions like "Session source," "Session medium," and "Session campaign" to see the data you've collected.

That's it! By consistently using campaign URL tracking, you'll gain much clearer insights into what's driving traffic and success for your blog.