In today’s market, getting visitors to the store is only half the battle. You want to make that conversion. You want them to buy that product, and when they do, you want to know how they got to it, so you know what works and what to change.
You can easily track these conversion sources by using your MatrixMaxx AMS combined with the power of Google Analytics and UTM codes. What to learn how? Keep reading this article for an example of how we could track individuals ordering a product. [For a high-level intro to Conversion Tracking you may watch this instructional how-to video for setting up meeting registration tracking.]
URL Creation
If you aren’t already doing so, your association must start to use Google Analytics UTM codes in your emails (and create redirects to these URLs for print mailings). These codes allow you to track the success of your website marketing campaigns in Google Analytics, as well as track product order conversions in MatrixMaxx — a two-for-one value!!!
You start this process by creating a special parameterized URL that will contain the critical data you want to track.
NOTE! The codes you use are case-sensitive, so be sure to copy and use the URL, and codes, exactly.
- First, get the URL of the product you are publicizing/marketing. In order to track conversions in MatrixMaxx using this generic method, this page must be a MatrixMaxx-generated page. For example, if you are generating an informational page in your CMS or as a custom-built site, then the only way you can generically track conversions is to send the user directly to the MatrixMaxx-generated product page. (Matrix could also add custom code to your CMS to enable it to function with this tracking; contact Matrix Group to discuss options.)
- Then access Google’s URL Builder to create the links that you send out with your communications.
- For Campaign Name, you should put in the name of the product campaign. For example, “productpromotion-Annual Salary Survey 2017” or “productpromotion-Power of Meat 2017” or “The Science Series 2018 promotion.” (You will then use this name in CommerceMaxx to connect to this product(s). See below for details. This name MUST match what you put into MatrixMaxx’s Email Campaign Code field or your conversions won’t be tracked in MatrixMaxx!)
- Fill in the Medium with the general way you’re reaching your audience, such as “social media,” “email,” or “print”.
- Then, the most important field is the specific Source that narrows the information even further and will come into MatrixMaxx as the Marketing Code Analytics Source field. You can use terms like “Newsletter-April2016″, “Homepage Branding Area”, “Facebook”, “Twitter”, “LinkedIn”, “Brochure”, “STD Postcard”, “CEOLetter-April2017”.
Once your parameter data is complete, Google will provide you with a special URL. You should now use this URL in your marketing campaigns.
Commerce Product Setup
During product setup — or by later editing the product from the ‘marketing’ accordion on the product view page — put the campaign code you want to use into MatrixMaxx under the field “Analytics Campaign Code.” Remember, if you’re planning to market using the Campaign Name “productpromotion-Annual Salary Survey 2017”, be sure to use this exact name in the product’s Analytics Campaign Code field.
(IMPORTANT: This value MUST match what you put into your parameterized URLs or your conversions won’t be tracked in MatrixMaxx!)
Marketing your Product(s)
Make sure any communications sent out use these parameterized Google tracking ‘UTM’ links.
When a user clicks on the link, MatrixMaxx sets a cookie in their browser, containing the Campaign and Source information.
Tech Notes:
- The cookie expires after 90 days.
- If a user follows one link but doesn’t purchase a product, then a few weeks later follows a second link with the same Campaign name, we’ll overwrite the cookie with the new Source data so that if the user purchases the product this second time, we’ll capture the second source that created the conversion, not the first one that failed to convert.
- We track the marketing code at the ORDER level, and there is only one code per order. i.e., If a user follows one link to one product using one campaign, and adds that product to the cart but doesn’t check out, then 3 weeks later follows a second link to a second product and adds that product to the cart and then checks out. The marketing source code will come from the 2nd product.
- If there is no source for the particular campaign for the item that has just been ‘sold,’ but the browser session holds a source, we will use this for the sake of gathering potentially useful data. For example: A user follows a link to the ‘2017 Salary Survey’ product, which sets a cookie with a source of ’email-newsletter-April2017′. The user does NOT buy the product, but they end up linking to the Annual Meeting and registering, we will cature the current browser session source of ‘2017 Salary Survey’ and record that, even if you never mentioned or marketed the annual meeting in the April newsletter, it clearly drove them to your site and influenced their registration.
- By default, this cookie-setting function will only work by sending users to MatrixMaxx-generated WWW pages. However, you may make this function work with other pages (e.g., CMS-generated pages) by using the MatrixMaxx URL Builder. Go to Reports -> Analytics -> MatrixMaxx URL Builder
IMPORTANT! If your association sends out links to your products without the UTM codes in place, we can’t set the cookie and thus you can’t track conversions!
Reporting on the Results in CommerceMaxx
So here’s what you’ve been waiting for: How do you see all this great data???
Individual Orders
The Google Campaign Source is being saved into the the order’s Analytics Source Marketing Code field.
You can check the Source an individual came from by going into their individual product purchase order.
- MatrixMaxx Intranet -> Commerce tab -> Search for Orders
- Search for product orders from there, or search through all product orders to find the specific order you want to view.
- In the Purchase View of the order, you’ll see Marketing Code, which will contain the source this product purchase came in with, if they had one.
Product-level Tracking
The Google Campaign Source is being saved into the the individual product’s Analytics Source Marketing Code field.
You can check the Sources for all purchases of a specific product that converted due to a tracked marketing campaign by going to that individual product detail page in MatrixMaxx.
MatrixMaxx Intranet -> Commerce tab -> Search for Products
- Search for the particular product from here.
- In the View of the product, you’ll see a new Marketing accordion, which will contain details about the tracking details for this specific product.
- The Marketing Codes for Orders With This Product area shows sources followed in conversions for this product, if there were any.
- Click on a particular Marketing Code to see all the orders for this Marketing Code.
- Note that you can also be reminded of the Campaign Code you set for this particular product, or edit it at any time, from this product view Marketing accordion.
Product-Order Conversion Tracking: The Summary of Product Orders, By Source and Marketing Code Report
You can see the breakdown of product orders by Marketing Code by running the “Summary of Product Orders, by Source and Marketing Code” report, under the Commerce Reports section. This report breaks down how much of the total product order revenue is coming from various sources. You can run the report on one specific Product (using the Product ID), or run the report for orders processed within a date range. Click on one of the Marketing Codes to see all the orders that came in to MatrixMaxx with that particular marketing code. Note that the category “Undefined” indicates orders that came into MatrixMaxx without a Marketing Code.
Reporting on the Results in Google Analytics
You can see the traffic to your product pages broken down by source by accessing your Analytics and going to Site Content -> All Pages and finding the page you’re linking to. Click on the URL and you’ll be taken to a view for that page only. You can then set the primary or secondary dimension to Source and you’ll have a breakdown of the traffic by the Source you used in your communications.
Note that this works for any page on your site; the source data is kept for a user’s entire session, from when they enter through your link with tracking codes to when their session ends by either leaving your site or closing their browser.