Have you ever noticed how long these Web addresses are?  Ever wonder why these URL are so long?

The answer is simple: tracking codes. Tracking codes are strings of text added to the end of a URL that let you track the source of a click.  For example, if your organization has an e-mail newsletter and you want to know how many people click on the links in your e-mails, you add tracking codes to the URLs.  Your usage tracking software will almost always treat the URLs with the tracking codes as unique from the same URLs without the tracking codes.  So, when looking at your usage reports, you can look at usage overall to specific pages and then figure out how much of the traffic came from the e-mail newsletter.

If you usage Google Analytics for usage tracking, Google has a terrific URL builder that create properly formatted tracking codes to track the source of clicks, specific campaigns, even the duration of your campaign.  Here’s an example of how it works:

Let’s take the URL to my recent blog post on magazine subscriptions on the iPad.  The URL looks like this if I navigate directly to it:

http://www.thematrixfiles.net/blog/am-i-really-going-to-pay-4-99-for-one-issue-of-time-magazine/

When my marketing team promotes this blog post e-mails, Twitter, Facebook, etc., we use the Google URL builder to add tracking codes.  Here’s a sample URL:

http://www.thematrixfiles.net/blog/am-i-really-going-to-pay-4-99-for-one-issue-of-time-magazine/?utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=SM&utm_campaign=blog

If you look at the codes closely, you’ll easily decipher that the source is Twitter, the medium is SM (social media, as opposed to e-mail or a banner ad) and the campaign is blog (as opposed to events, news, jobs, etc.).  On a regular basis, we filter our usage reports in Google Analytics to see how many clicks we’re getting to the blog post from our posts on Twitter, as opposed to direct traffic and traffic from other sources.

Oh, btw, since these URLs are crazy long, I use a URL shortener service like TinyURL or Bit.ly to keep my links manageable on sites like Twitter.  I don’t bother shortening the URL when I’m posting links on Facebook, Amplify or this blog.

Bottom line?  Tracking codes are key to tracking the success of your outbound marketing campaigns.  I recommend never linking to pages on your Web site without some type of tracking code.

How about you?  Are you using tracking codes in your campaigns?  What services are you using?  How are tracking codes helping your measure the success of your campaigns?

The number one reason for the seeming decline is splitting up Web traffic over multiple domains.  For example, many clients are moving to Web-based membership databases hosted by their providers.  Which means they now have usage at www.association.org and www2.association.org. Their Web traffic is now on two different servers, in different log files.  So, if a lot of your functionality (e.g., member directory, events calendar, meeting registration, manage profile) moved to another server, your traffic on the main Web site could take a nosedive.  The solution?  Get usage reports from your providers, arrange to download log files and run reports yourself, or add Google analytics or Webtrends on Demand to your header files to get consolidated reports.

The second reason is RSS feeds and e-mail updates.  Don’t get me wrong.    RSS feeds and e-mail updates are powerful push marketing tools.  You need them.  Your overall traffic is likely to increase as a result of these tools, but there is also a chance that your traffic will be redirected.  Here’s why: FeedBurner, the popular RSS feed aggregator, caches your content and serves it from their servers.  So all the visitors who read your content through their RSS readers and e-mail clients, AND who do NOT click through to your site are still valid visitors.  But now their traffic is logged in FeedBurner.  Make a habit of checking your FeedBurner stats along with your Google or Webtrends stats.

The third reason is less happy.  If your site relies on push marketing to drive traffic to your site, there’s a chance that spam filters and firewalls are blocking a larger percentage of your traffic.  Be sure to check delivery reports, ask your readers to whitelist your domain and vigorously follow-up with domains that regularly block your e-mails. I’ll post next time about software you can use to test the likelihood that your messages will be blocked by spam filters.

So, be sure to add your RSS and e-mail usage reports to your overall usage dashboard.

Oh, and if you’d like to learn more, I’m holding a seminar on usage reports on July 29.  Get more details and RSVP