If your organisation has Google Analytics (GA4) set up, you can use this as a tool to track links in your Integrated Email Campaigns and Dotdigital Programs.
In this article, we’ll explain how to set up and report on UTM tracking in Dotdigital Email Campaigns.
TIP: If you need support setting up GA4 for your organisation, we work with a number of Partners who can help. Take a look at the Partner Directory (US and Canada / UK and Ireland) for more information.
What is UTM tracking?
A UTM (Urchin Tracking Module) is code which you can add to the end of a URL to track the link.
For example, instead of a link looking like this:
https://www.yourwebsite.com
It would look like this:
https://www.yourwebsite.com?utm_source=Spektrix&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=JulyNewsletter
You can activate UTM tracking in Dotdigital to add additional information to the links in the emails you send.
You can then use this information in GA4 to see which links from emails brought customers to your website, and whether they bought tickets or not.
UTM tracking in Dotdigital
In Dotdigital, you can set up and collect three default GA4 UTM tracking parameters:
- utm_campaign=
The name of the Email Campaign you have set in Dotdigital. This will let you group links by Campaign in reports.
- utm_medium=email
The medium is the method by which you send out the link. In this case, the medium is email.
- utm_source=
This is the company name of your Dotdigital account.
How to turn on UTM Tracking in Dotdigital
To add default UTM tracking Parameters to all Email Campaigns, follow the steps below in your Dotdigital account.
- From the bottom left corner, expand the User Menu and click Settings.
<>
- From the Settings menu, click Tracking.
- From the Tracking menu, click Broadcast email link tracking.
- In the top right corner, click Google Analytics Tracking.
- If it’s your first time setting this up, a pop up will display the tracking parameters you’re about to add to your account. Click Continue. You can then see the default tracking parameters on your account.
If you’ve already set up Broadcast email link tracking, you’ll see the default tracking parameters and any custom tracking parameters set up on your account.
How to see Dotdigital UTM parameters in GA4
Once the UTM tracking is set up in Dotdigital, you can use Google Analytics (GA4) to measure the traffic that comes to your website from Dotdigital email campaign link clicks.
A Traffic acquisition report will show each campaign using Medium and/or Campaign. You can also filter the results using the UTM parameters from Dotdigital.
If you’ve set up Events to record confirmed Basket/Carts, you can also track the value of sales generated from an email by using the Engagement report. This can be done in the same way, by filtering the results using the UTM parameters from Dotdigital.
Additional tracking parameters
It’s possible to set up additional UTM tracking parameters in Dotdigital which can also appear in GA4.
You can set up new parameters that use existing Dotdigital Data Fields, or create your own custom parameters.
For example, you might want to do this to group Email Campaigns by Campaign Tags (specified in Campaign Details when setting up a Dotdigital Email Campaign). Using Campaign Tags you can group Pre and Post Show Emails, or track links that have been sent out in emails that are part of a Dotdigital Program.
To do this you can set up a new UTM Parameter using the $CAMPAIGN_TAGS$ data field.
Additionally, you can also use the following Parameters to add information from Dotdigital:
| Data Field | Description |
| $CAMPAIGN_TAGS$ | A list of the Campaign Tags added to the campaign. |
| $LINK_KEYWORD$ | The link name that you set up in the Add a link window in EasyEditor. |
| $SPLIT_TEST_VERSION$ | Returns the version number for each creative content version. |
WARNING: You can also use other Data Fields such as synced Tags and calculated metrics. However, do not use any data fields which contain personal data.
How to set up additional parameters
To set up additional tracking parameters in Dotdigital, follow the steps below.
- Go to Settings > Tracking > Broadcast email link tracking.
- Click Add New
- In the Field box, enter the UTM parameter you want to use for tracking. For example, if I want to include the @NEVERBOOKED@ Data field, I could call my UTM parameter: utm_neverbooked.
TIP: Use a consistent naming convention for UTM parameters. Only use the necessary parameters to avoid long URLs.
- Click the personalisation icon next to the Value field. From the dropdown, choose the Data Field you want to link this UTM parameter to.
- Leave the Remove unsafe characters box checked.
- Click Save.
Your new tracking parameter will then appear alongside the others:
Campaign Specific Link Tracking
By default link tracking is applied to all email campaigns. However, you can change the link tracking settings of a specific email campaign. To do this follow the steps below:
- Go to Campaigns > Email and create or edit an email campaign.
- On the Campaign details page, for Link tracking, select CHANGE.
- Select CAMPAIGN SPECIFIC.
- You will see all of the default UTM Tags. You can then make any changes or remove any UTM for this specific campaign.
- Click New Tracking if you’d like to set up a new UTM tag for this specific campaign.
- Click APPLY to save your changes.
UTM tags created locally will not appear alongside your default UTM tracking parameters under Broadcast Email Link Tracking.
Further Reading
If you need support setting up GA4 for your organisation we work with a number of Partners who can help. Take a look at the Partner Directory (US and Canada / UK and Ireland) for more information.
To continue learning about Dotdigital, take a look at the Communicate with your Customers category on the Support Centre.