Giving other people a URL that referred a website to them

Marketing
1

Hi there,

I have a listing website that lists contests and freebies. Each listing has a link to the external website that the contest is on.

What I am wondering is, if I should be adding some tracking code to the external links so that when those external websites look at their reports in GA, they can see that my website is providing content.

What would be the best way to do this?

Do I just add something like this to my links:

https://www.mywebsite.com?utm_source=my-website-name-here

Thanks

2

(Just speaking from my mind here, I have no idea if i’m right)

I’m fairly sure that utm_source would only be used if in conjunction with utm_campaign and utm_medium (in other words, the target site needs to have set up a campaign to receive this information.)

3

If you are looking for a campaign builder that will show data in Google Analytics, this is a great tool:

4

What if the site is a Wordpress site? Is that a special case?

5

I don’t think so, as long as it has google analytics installed you should be fine.

6

Unless i’ve missed something, the OP is referring to outbound links, not inbound ones; so it wouldnt be for HIM to create the campaign, it’s the other side that would have to have an active one?

7

Correct, you always need at least those three.

No you don’t have to start a campaign in GA for utm data. As long as the utm parameters are sent to a site then in GA you can see it as a traffic source, without any need for prior setup. The campaign is just for the website with outgoing links so that if they are running multiple campaign they can see which traffic comes from which campaign. But it’s basically just a string label, nothing fancy behind it.

Also see https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1033863?hl=en

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9

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