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I would like to start tracking email visits to give them an email medium using GA campaign parameters

However I'm not happy with the long utm link parameters; they are unsightly and also prone to getting shared inappropriately, as many people won't take the time to remove them when copying and pasting a link after viewing a page.

Is there a way to track email traffic without having such a URL?

Drewdavid
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3 Answers3

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You can user an url shortener service to shorten a link with parameters. Or you can use special landing pages that are linked only via you email campaigns (so you either recognize email campaigns via the landingpage or you make this a redirect that redirects with the proper utm parameters).

Edit: If as per your comment your worried what ends up in the browser bar you should still be able to use a special landingpage and send the campaign parameters by passing the url as virtual pageview. In Universal Analytics you might be able to set the campaign name via the "set" method, but I have not tested this.

Eike Pierstorff
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  • Hi, and thank You. :) I'm more concerned with what ends up in the browser address bar than what's in the hyperlink address that gets clicked on; I almost need the reverse of this answer – though using a special landing page is a handy idea – Drewdavid Nov 12 '13 at 21:34
  • +1 on the use of making it a redirect that redirects with the proper utm parameters. We had a client that was picky about the utm parameters, so we did a redirect and appended the utm params on redirect. – Blexy Nov 12 '13 at 23:43
  • @Blexy I'm not quite picking up on your flow here, perhaps you could elaborate in the form of an answer? – Drewdavid Mar 27 '15 at 18:00
  • @Drewdavid, added an answer. – Blexy Mar 27 '15 at 18:07
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If long URL is your only concern, you could use http://wistia.com/blog/fresh-url to cleanup the URL once a visitor lands on your website.

It works with major analytics tools and won't affect your tracking.

Puru Choudhary
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  • Thanks for sharing this! I haven't tried it yet, but this should solve my issue (and probably many other people's as well). – Drewdavid Mar 27 '15 at 17:59
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Edit your .htaccess file to include the utm parameters on your redirect URL.

Redirect /awesomevanityurl http://example.com/marketinglandingpage.html?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=awesome%20keyword&utm_campaign=slogan
Blexy
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  • Ok I understand now -- Thanks! This is helpful to know, but doesn't solve my primary issue of having an ugly link in the browser bar for sharing purposes. Most users would copy/share a URL after they have reviewed the content, not before. Puru's reference to Wistia's service is my best answer so far. :) – Drewdavid Mar 27 '15 at 18:10