I have recently placed an ad in a weekly publication that sends out a PDF file. My ad is directly linked so that the reader can click on it and go to my website. The PDF file is hosted on a different server, but is, in fact, a PDF file that has to be downloaded and viewed on that site, not emailed or shared that way. I have Google Analytics and a couple other stats tracking programs installed and I can't see the referring URL from this other site at all, in anything. Is there something I can ask the designer of the PDF file to include in her links to make them trackable? Or is this simply not possible?
A:
Can you ask them to put some token in the query string of the URL to the site?
Justin
2010-07-28 16:27:08
That is quite possible. I'm sure they'd be happy to do it, but I just don't know what to ask them to put in there?
RodeoRamsey
2010-07-28 16:42:26
+1
A:
Use Google Analytics Campaign Tagging.
This tool will help set it up. You'll want to classify the variables such that the source and the medium are set, at minimum.
http://www.google.com/support/analytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=55578
So, for example, if your URL is http://example.com, you could set the parameters as such:
utm_source: BlahNews utm_medium: newsletter utm_campaign: july10issue
Your resulting URL would be http://example.com/?utm_source=BlahNews&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=july10issue
Google Analytics would track these hits under that Campaign, Source and medium.
If the URL is displayed raw, and want to avoid 'displaying' an ugly URL, you could setup an internal redirect to that URL, and it looks like you're using WordPress, there are a few free plugins that manage redirects like this (I happen to like 'Redirection')
So, you could tell the plugin to redirect
http://example.com/blahnews TO http://example.com/?utm_source=BlahNews&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=july10issue
yc
2010-07-28 18:27:43
Sounds great but how will Google Analytics know to track it if I can't even see the originating website as a simple referrer? Sorry, I'm quite the Analytics noob.
RodeoRamsey
2010-07-29 02:41:48
Oh wait, would I give my newly generated google-rich link to the publication and ask them to replace http://mysimpleurl.com with http://mynewawesomegooglegoodnesslink.com? :)
RodeoRamsey
2010-07-29 02:44:58
RodeoRamsey
2010-07-29 02:47:05
You can never get the Referer from a non-website source. You'll have to settle for manually coded Campaigns, Mediums and Sources. The example.com/?utm... is the same as example.com; the utm code is just for Google Analytics; it doesn't change the substantive content of the page.The /blahnews idea was in case you need to display the URL in text form (rather than have a link), since SHOWING the utm string is ugly, some people create a fake alias like /blahnews that, when visited, takes them to a page (in your example, the home page), but with the utm string attached so GA can track it.
yc
2010-07-29 03:35:40
To belabor the last point, in my example, there is no actual /blahnews page; you'd setup a redirect in WordPress to tell wordpress to redirect to the main page with the utm string attached.So, /blahnews -> example.com?utm...
yc
2010-07-29 03:37:20
RodeoRamsey
2010-08-03 19:05:30
Nope, that will work fine. Once clicks come in, GA will do the work for you, and once the data processes, you'll be able to view that data directly, use advanced segmentation to track those users, or use that information for secondary dimensions.
yc
2010-08-03 20:54:50