Google Analytics Campaign URL builder with Short URL and Twitter posting

• 13.05.2009
• Av Eivind Savio

One of the biggest problems with online marketing campaigns are that the campaigns are not tracked as campaigns. If you do not track your campaigns, you will not know how efficient your campaign is.

Another reason for lousy campaign data, are that the marketers are creating infunctional campaign URLs because they don't know much about URLs.

And to be honest, the Google Analytics tool builder isn't the best tool in the world for creating campaign URLs.

Because of this I have created what I humbly believe can be an easier and more time saving solution to create Google Analytics Campaign URLs.

The Google Analytics Campaign URLs created by this tool can be exported to Excel, you can create short URLs and post the shortened URL to Twitter directly.

Installing the Campaign URL builder

1. Make sure the "Bookmarks Toolbar/Links Toolbar" is visible. If it is not, go to menu View > Toolbars (or something similar, depending on your browser type).
2. Drag this link:Google Analytics URL builder up to your Bookmarks Toolbar. Alternatively, right click on the link and save to bookmarks.

You are now ready to create campaign URLs, shorten the campaign URL (and share it on Twitter), or export the campaign URL to Excel.

How to use the Google Analytics Campaign URL builder

Visit your site campaign landing page, click on the Google Analytics URL builder link, and a page looking like the image above will load in front of your page.

Creating the campaign URL

The URL field will be automatically filled out with the URL to your landing page. The Source, Medium and Campaign field are prefilled for a Twitter campaign, and the final Campaign URL is created on the fly. This means that if you are changing some of the values in the different fields, the Campaign URL is automatically updated.

One problem I have experienced with people not very familiar with URLs are that they sometimes uses several ? (question marks) when they create campaing URLs. This tool adresses that particular problem.
Exampel of incorrect URL:
http://domain.com?id=123?utm_source=src&utm_medium=med&utm_campaign=cmp

One URL should only contain one question mark, if not the URL will/may break, and therefor this tool handles this automatically.

Exporting Campaign URLs to Excel

Sometimes it can be more handy to work with your campaign URLs in Excel, for exampel if your campaign includes several sources.

Choose your Microsoft Office language (the tool supports English or Norwegian), and click the Excel button. The Excel spreadsheet created makes it easy to continue to build your campaign, since it is pre-programmed with an Excel formula.

The Excel spreadsheet and the Excel formula is inspired by The Link Tagging Tool (Google Docs tool) from Epikone.

Creating Short URLs with bit.ly or Cligs

If you click the Shorten button, you can shorten your Campaign URL using either the URL shortener from bit.ly or Cligs.

Creating short URLs with bit.ly

If you want to use bit.ly, you will have to register and get your API key. Then do the following:

1. Copy your API key.
2. Choose bit.ly from the URL shortener drop down menu.
3. Paste your API key into the API text field and your username into the username field.
4. If you click the Save button, your username and API key will be saved into a cookie on your computer, so you don't have to enter this information the next time you uses my Google Analytics URL tool.
5. Click the Shorten button, and your short URL will be created from the URL in the Campaign URL field. The Short URL created will be visible in the Short URL text field.

Creating short URLs with Cligs

If you want access to the additional statistics from Cligs, you will have to register at Cligs and create an API key. Then do the following:

1. Copy your API key.
2. Choose Cligs from the URL shortener drop down menu.
3. Paste your API key into the text field.
4. If you click the Save button, your API key will be saved into a cookie on your computer, so you don't have to enter your API key the next time you uses my Google Analytics URL tool.
5. Click the Shorten button, and your short URL will be created from the URL in the Campaign URL field. The Short URL created will be visible in the Short URL text field.

If you want to shorten a URL without the Google Analytics campaign variables, just delete the value in the Source field. All the campaign variables will then be automatically removed.

By clicking the Tweet button you can share your shortended URL on Twitter.

Things to be aware of

1. Browsers: I have tested the tool in different browsers on Windows, but not on Mac. The tool should work well in different browsers, but I have experienced some problems with Internet Explorer 6. This is related to the Zero Clipboard Copy function.
2. Pop-up blockers: Some pop-up blockers (for exampel the pop-up blocker in Google Toolbar) may prevent the tool from loading. If this happens, allow pop-ups from this domain.
3. Export to Excel: You may see a warning when you try to open the Excel spreadsheet. This happens because I'm forcing a HTML page to act like a Excel spreadsheet. It is totally safe to open the Excel spreadsheet created.

Update

• 09.12.2009: URL shortening with bit.ly added. If you are using my previous version update your bookmark since the new version is having a larger window size.
• 13.02.2010: Support for Parameter Separator added. # (hash) separator can be used instead of ? (question mark) in the Campaign URL. This is a more SEO friendly solution. See Google for information about implementation.
• 13.02.2010: Support for Conversion Attribution added. A conversion can be attributed to the First Click if you want, and not the last one (which is default in Google Analytics). This is done by adding the parameter utm_nooverride=1 to the campaign URL.
  See this help information from Google for more information.

Some final words

If you look around on my site you have probably noticed that everything else is written in Norwegian. I normally don't blog in English, but sometimes I make an exception. Since this blog normally is in Norwegian, and I haven't had time to implement a multilingual blog system, you find some explanations of how to comment below:

Click "Legg til kommentar" below. Than fill out your name (Navn), e-mail (Epost) and your website (Ditt nettsted) if you have a website. HTML formatting doesn't work in my comment field, use BBCode formatting instead. You can drag the comment field around if you want to. If you want to preview what you have written, click on "Forhåndsvis". When you are done and want to save your comment, click on "Lagre". If you haven't had any comments approved on this blog before, I will have to approve your comment manually.

I hope you find my Google Analytics Campaign URL builder tool useful. If you have any comments or suggestions, I appreciate your feedback.

Du kan følge kommentarer til denne posten med RSS. Du må ha javascript aktivert for å kunne kommentere. Tilbaketråkk er deaktivert.

Tags : google analytics, web analytics, twitter, short url, bitly, cligs

• Legg til kommentar

• Svar Daniel Kafka
• #137

• Svar Eivind Savio
• #139

• Svar Maarten Berge
• #142

• Svar Eivind Savio
• #143

• Svar Eivind Savio
• #145

• Nikhil Vijayan
• 29.04.2010 16:40:43

Really happy with this tool, was wishing someone had developed something like this! Many thanks

For the people struggling with the translation, one word: Ubiquity (it's a Firefox plugin) and works like a charm translating websites.

• Svar Nikhil Vijayan
• #152