How to setup URL Friendly Google Analytics Tracking Campaign

Question

I want to track an ad campaign via a URL that will appear in a magazine.

I see how to generate the Google Analytics campaign tracking url as follows: https://example.com?utm_source=news4&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=spring-summer

But I can't possibly publish that in the magazine article, nor can I expect someone to type that into a browser (accurately).

Is it possible to setup a server-side redirect or mod-rewrite using a more user friendly url and still capture the tracking data necessary in G.A?

If so, what is the best way to do this?

Answer 1

Set up a special landing page. When somebody arrives at that page via direct type in (document.referrer is empty) set the campaign fields in your GA tracking code to your desired values (how to do that depends on the version of the GA code you are using).

For your exact example, where users seems to land directly on the homepage example.com, there is no real solution, since the homepage probably receives direct traffic that does not originate in your print campaign; you need a uniqur path for that.

Answer 2

I'd consider a couple of options:

1. How about using a short URL? For example, example.com?utm_source=news4&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=spring-summer becomes goo.gl/MVM51p, which could also be easy for users to type in.

2. Create a new landing page, which JavaScript redirects to your campaign landing page. E.g. example.com/offer could redirect to example.com?utm_source=news4&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=spring-summer