If you suspect that your Social Media actions are having a significant impact on your e-commerce or, on the contrary, you feel that there is still a lot of room for improvement in that aspect, then this article on Google Analytics and social networks is ideal for you.
The objective of this post is for you to know, for sure, how effective the content you publish on , , Twitter and the other platforms where you have an account of your brand is being.
If, for example, you make a post on the Facebook page of your e-commerce to promote a new product, it is very likely that you have spread that same product page through various means (Instagram, , , etc.) and, eventually, you will need to differentiate which visits came through the different social media posts you made.
Therefore, we are going to explain what are the google analytics reports where you will be able to see this data, but first we are going to show you what are UTMs tags and how to create them so you can accurately track all metrics.
💡 If you haven’t created your Google Analytics account yet or you haven’t integrated it with your Tiendanube, we recommend you read this article about .
Now yes, let’s start!
What are UTMs tags
UTMs are text fragments that are added to the end of the URL (link). Its name comes from Urchin Traffic Monitor (Urchin Traffic Monitoring), a tool that Google bought and that allows you to know where the traffic that reaches a website comes from.
There are 5 types of UTM:
- utm_sourcethe source where the link is going to be published (Instagram, Facebook, etc.);
- utm_mediumthe means of dissemination (social media, newsletterbusiness blog, etc.);
- utm_campaignname of the campaign (you choose it);
- utm_contentthe post content type (downloadable, infographic)
- utm_termwhich is commonly used to analyze pay-per-click keywords.
In this article we are going to focus on the 3 most used: source, medium Y campaign.
This is what a URL looks like without the UTM tags:
www.mitiendaonline.com/producto-oferta
And this is how it looks with the UTM tags:
www.mitiendaonline.com/producto-oferta?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=oferta
The utm_source indicates where the user is coming from, the source through which it came to your online store. In the above example we have “facebook” as source and this will change according to each social network where the link is published.
The utm_medium refers to the medium by which your audience arrives. In the example we use “social” to clarify that it is a social network and that it is an organic publication, but we could put as medium “payment” in the case of advertising or “email” if we also send a campaign by email.
The utm_campaign gives an account of the campaign you want to broadcast, whether it is a specific offer, a special date such as Christmas, Hot Sale or , or the anniversary of your brand. In that case, it would be, for example, as: utm_campaign=offer.
💡 You can use the .
How to use UTMs tags?
After creating the UTMs tags According to each social network, you only have to publish them together with the copy that you have prepared.
We explain it to you with an example: let’s imagine that you have a clothing brand and you created a special offer for a winter jacket called fantasy. The social networks where you have an account of your brand are Facebook and Instagram.
In this case, the step by step to use the UTM tags is the following:
1. Create the UTM tags for each social network:
- www.mitiendaonline.com/producto-oferta?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=oferta-campera-fantasia
- www.mitiendaonline.com/producto-oferta?utm_source=instagram&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=oferta-campera-fantasia
2. Go to Facebook, make the usual publication and copy the link with the UTM created for this social network:
3. Go to Instagram, make the usual publication and share in the biography the link with the UTM created for this social network:
💡 To prevent the URL from being too long in your posts, use a shortener like
4. After a few days, check the results of these publications in Google Analytics (we’ll tell you how to complete this step below!).
💡 Keep your UTM tags organized in a spreadsheet, so they are easier to manage and you can identify and remove duplicate links. We suggest you create the following columns: original link, source, medium, campaignfinal link with UTM and publication date.
Google Analytics and social networks: main reports to measure your actions
After generating and publishing the UTMs tags, you will be able to see the results in Google Analytics. The main reports to measure your actions are:
- Channels Report
- Social Media Report
Next, we will tell you how to access each of them so that you can enhance your , having the metrics of your social networks as a source of data for decision making.
Channels Report
Through it you access information about all the ways by which the traffic arrives at your . This initial report will allow you to know in what proportion social networks are impacting your business, compared to other traffic sources.
To see the Channels Report, you have to go to Acquisition > All Traffic > Channels:
If you click on the “Social” option, you will see the details of each of each social network:
Through this report you will learn, first of all, how many users accessed your website through each social networkhow many of those users are new, and how many total sessions were generated.
Second, you will access information about the behaviour of those users. Here you will see metrics such as:
- Bounce Ratewhich measures how many users visit your website and leave it directly without visiting any more pages;
- the average how many pages per session they viewed;
- and the average duration of each session.
Finally, and only if you have configured the ‘Electronic Commerce’ option and the conversion goals, you will be able to see the more transactional and economic data of your actions.
Keep in mind that if you enter a specific social network and select the ‘Campaign’ dimension, you will see in detail the pages that you tagged with a UTM.
💡 I discovered .
Social Media Report
To go deeper and see separate reports of each aspect of the impact that social networks have on your online business, Google Analytics has the Social Media Report.
To access it, you have to go to Acquisition > Social Mediawhere at least 6 reports will be broken down:
- General view: Shows visits to the sales website from social networks and makes a comparison with the grand total; Likewise, you can have a quick overview of visits by each social network, the URLs of the pages that were shared (the 10 most shared) and the plugins that we will now see in point 5.
- Network References: used to find out where users interact with your content and which page or pages of your e-commerce receive more interactions according to each network.
- landing pages: here the URL of your online store is shown and, by pressing, you will see the breakdown by social network.
- conversions: in this report you will see the total number of conversions achieved by each social network, a fundamental piece of information to decide, for example, where to invest to carry out paid campaigns.
- Accessories: This report shows the URLs that were shared from your website through a button or a widget of Social Media installed.
- User Flow: Allows you to see how users who come from social networks browse your website.
now that you know how to use Google Analytics to measure the actions you carry out on your social networks, you will be able to design a more efficient strategy that, with certainty, will allow you optimize your resources.
Learn all about Analytics:
Article
And if you’ve come this far but still don’t have your Tiendanube, we invite you to try our platform. I sold online safely and quickly!
Facebook Comments
Disqus