🎧 The Motivated CEO: Business Strategy for Entrepreneurs is streaming on all platforms. Listen here. Also streaming on YouTube.
Supercharge Your Business with UTMs
What Exactly is a UTM?
A UTM, or Urchin Tracking Module, sounds a bit like a deep-sea adventure, doesn't it? But despite the quirky name, UTMs offer a straightforward, powerful way to track the origin of web traffic. Essentially, a UTM is a bit of code you append to a URL that delivers a treasure trove of data back to your Google Analytics account. With this data, you can pinpoint exactly where your visitors are coming from, be it social media, email newsletters, or specific ad campaigns.
The Ease of UTM Implementation
If you’re thinking this sounds a bit overly technical, worry not! Creating UTMs is easier than you might think. Google's Campaign URL Builder simplifies the process into a few easy steps. You merely enter details such as the source (e.g., Facebook), medium (e.g., email), and campaign name (e.g., Black Friday Sale). Then, voila! The tool generates a URL complete with your UTM parameters, ready to be shared.
Using UTMs on Social Media
One of the most potent uses of UTMs is tracking social media campaigns. If you share a link in your Instagram story, for example, attaching a UTM code will allow you to see precisely how much traffic that story generates. This granular data lets you assess the effectiveness of individual posts and refine your social media strategy accordingly.
Optimizing Email Marketing Campaigns
Email marketing remains a powerful driver of traffic, and UTMs can enhance its effectiveness exponentially. Most email platforms offer an option to automatically append UTM codes to all links within your emails. By enabling this feature, you can gather detailed data on what content resonates most with your subscribers. With this information, you can optimize future emails to better meet your audience's interests and needs.
Enhancing Podcast Show Notes
As a podcast host, wouldn’t you like to know how much traffic your episodes are driving? By adding UTM codes to links in your show notes, you can do just that. For instance, if you include a link to a product or a freebie in your show notes, the UTM will track how many listeners are clicking that link and visiting your site. This can help you gauge the effectiveness of your podcast in driving action and engagement.
Making Networking Count
If you’ve ever wondered whether your networking efforts are paying off, UTMs can provide that clarity. Before sharing your social media links during a networking call, append a UTM code. This enables you to track how many people are connecting with you from each networking event. With this information, you can determine which events provide the highest return on investment, allowing you to prioritize your networking activities.
Leveraging Conferences and Swag Bags
Conferences offer fantastic networking opportunities, but are they worth the time and money? UTMs can help answer that. By creating QR codes embedded with UTM codes for freebies or promo offers you hand out, you can track how many people take action. This allows you to assess the conversion rate from each conference and fine-tune your strategy for future events.
Maximizing Guest Appearances
Whenever you are a guest on another podcast, consider embedding UTM codes in the links you share. This will enable you to track which guest appearances drive the most traffic and conversions. Such insights can help you identify the best podcasts for future collaborations and even uncover new marketing angles.
Conclusion: Embrace the Power of UTMs
In a world where data is king, UTMs offer a simple yet powerful way to gather invaluable insights. Whether you’re sharing links on social media, in emails, during networking events, or even as a podcast guest, UTMs can help you measure the effectiveness of your efforts. With Google Analytics at your fingertips, you can easily access and analyze this data, allowing you to make informed decisions and fine-tune your marketing strategies.
Episode Links
🎙️DID YOU LOVE THIS EPISODE?
Check out these episodes packed with even more strategies to help you shatter your sales plateau!
❌ Don't buy my Bestselling Book, The CEO Method: An Entrepreneur’s Guide to Business Success because I want to give you a FREE copy. Click here!
🙋♀️ Ask me anything! I know you have a burning business question you would love to ask. Submit your question here for a chance to have it answered on a future episode.
Transcript for Episode 371. The Secret to Tracking Marketing ROI Surprising
Amy [00:00:02]:
Wouldn't it be so cool to have data that goes deeper than your website to find out exactly where people are coming from, where people at the top of your funnel are entering your world to see exactly where that traffic was coming from? Beyond just those website statistics, my friend, there's good news. There is. And I just learned about this earlier this year. These are called UTMs, and I've talked about them a few times here on the podcast. But today, let's really dive in and unpack exactly what is a utm and how can you use this data to further drive your business decisions and grow the business that you love, that supports the life that you want? So, first of all, what is a utm? I actually had to Google this because I had no clue. I've been using them since probably February, when one of my business besties told me about it. She's like, are you assigning UTMs to your links in your show notes to see how much of your traffic is coming from your podcast? I'm like, I don't know what you're talking about. So a UTM stands for Urchin Tracking Module.
Amy [00:01:27]:
I feel like we're on a deep sea adventure, right? Urchin. I thought it was like Universal Tracking Module. Nope, it's Urchin Tracking Module. I don't know. I'm sure you could dive deeper into that if you do a search online. But what this is, in layman's terms, it's a little snippet of code at the end of the website address, that URL that sends Google so much data that you can track. Now, I know what you're thinking, that sounds really complicated. I'm here to tell you, if I can figure it out, so can you.
Amy [00:02:01]:
It's so easy to create. There's so many resources on Google, on YouTube that you can just search for and it will walk you through step by step. But I'll put the link in the show notes. It all goes through Google Analytics. You go to their campaign builder and what you do is you assign, okay, where is that traffic source coming in from? Is it podcast, is it email, is it website, is it Facebook, is it Instagram? All of these different places that we have this information out there. And you set up this, you plug in all those values, and again, super easy, it walks you right through it and it gives you a new web address. So what I do is I literally use this information to gain insights across every platform that I'm on to see exactly what is working, what is converting, and the first place I do this is social media. I do this a lot.
Amy [00:03:08]:
If I ever share something to my stories on Instagram, I'll put that little UTM snippet of code in there so that I can see if someone clicks on that link. In my story that I shared, I can see that that person came direct from Instagram. I can even go even more granular and put what story I attached it to. But again, start simple. This is just like I say, with any of the data that you start to track, start simple, start easy. You can use this if you're running paid ads. Track who is clicking on that link to download your freebie on your website and you can attach that ad to the UTM so that you can see exactly who is seeing this ad that I'm running, who has clicked and came from this social media platform. You can do this for Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, any of the platforms that you're on that you're able to share a web address.
Amy [00:04:15]:
All you're doing is it's just creating this extra little piece of information at the end of your link. And you don't even have to do it, you don't have to code it. The UTM builder through Google Analytics will do it for you, which is amazing. The next place I use it, I use it on my networking calls. Anytime I am attending a networking call. You know how we all share our links out, right? So what I have is I have my little thing that I copy and paste. It's just on a sticky on my desktop. I copy it and I say, hey, let's connect over on Instagram.
Amy [00:04:50]:
Amytraw. What I do is I hyperlink that with a utmost. So I take the minute before the networking call and I click on it and I go, okay, here's what I'm going to share. This is the website I want them to go to, HTTPs instagram.com amytraw and then it adds the whole UTM code. So now I can see when people are clicking these links, this is where they came from that my networking efforts are paying off. So now I'm able to see is this investment of time that I'm spending networking, is that leading to more people in my world opting into my different resources and freebies. The next place I love to share it is in my show notes. So as a podcast host, I want to know exactly what volume of traffic is coming in from the podcast.
Amy [00:05:53]:
So what I do is I attach a UTM code. For example, if you click the link to grab a copy of my book, the CEO Method which if you haven't done yet, please do. It's awesome. It was an Amazon bestseller and lays out so much information for you to grow your business. It's linked in the show notes, but if you click that link, you're not going to notice anything from your standpoint. But what I see on the backend when I go in and look at my analytics each month through Google, I can see how many people clicked the link from that specific episode to download the book again. It's brilliant because when I notice these patterns, I look and analyze this over time. I see, okay, this is what's working really well.
Amy [00:06:47]:
This is what's leading to conversions. This is how people are getting into my world. So what that allows me to do is laser focus my energy into the areas that are converting. And on the flip side, it gives me the ability to optimize the things that aren't, the things that aren't converting as well. Where I can go, okay, do I actually need this avenue or can I just make some little tweaks? Maybe I don't need to scrap the whole thing. Maybe I can make some little tweaks to the colors, the look, the feel, the verbiage, any of those things. So often what happens is we're just burning it all down, right? We're like, oh, this isn't working, so I need to do the next thing. And then we get like whiplash because we're doing thing to thing the thing to thing and jumping and pivoting so much that we're not actually giving time for things to work.
Amy [00:07:47]:
We're not taking the time to be intentional and to dive into the data. Now the next place I love using UTMs is on my email list. And most email providers, you don't even have to go into the Google UTM builder they allow you. Like, I use an email platform that, full disclosure, I don't love. So I'm not going to say them because earlier this year we had some major issues with the new tracking thing that went into effect with Gmail and Yahoo, but they're pretty great otherwise. But I can literally just click a button that says enable UTMs and it automatically assigns them to any link within my emails. So that at the end of the month when I go in, look at my analytics, I can see exactly what was resonating with people, what was really piquing their interest. So I can serve them.
Amy [00:08:49]:
So I can serve you even better. Because this is about serving others so often we're so focused on me, me, me. But when we really take that step back and shift that focus on how can I serve, what can I do for them? What can I do to serve and nurture you? This is gold. This is where you begin to position yourself as the authority, as the expert in your industry. I've got two other places that I love sharing UTMs and I use them all of the time. The next one is anytime I am a guest on a podcast, the link that I share, I take the 2 seconds and create the Google UTM link for it. So the little freebies that I share when I'm a guest on someone else's podcast, I'm going to attach that snippet of code again so I can see. Okay, I was on this podcast and this converted really, really well.
Amy [00:09:55]:
This would be a great podcast to collaborate again in the future. How can I do more promotion of this episode so that I can really amplify what does their audience have in common with my audience that I can get curious and go, oh, that's a new angle that I could market from because this worked really, really well. How can I do more of that? What characteristics did their audience have that mine does that I can further lean into it? Building a business is all about curiosity. It's all about leveraging the data. And that's what we're really going to see in the upcoming year with the changes that the FTC just enacted a few months back, is we are going to start to see a shift from the income based marketing that's happening in the online space to the sustainable way to build your business, which is by leveraging data. Having that strategic approach. It's not just about saying, look how much money I make, look how much money my clients make. People are skeptical and it's going to stop working and you're going to get into some pretty hot water.
Amy [00:11:12]:
I mean, there are very serious fines in place of upwards of $50,000. And I don't know about you, but I could think of a lot better ways that I would want to invest $50,000 rather than just giving it back to the FTC. So I will step off my soapbox right now, but the last place I love to promote myself with the utms, and I use them all of the time, is anytime I am at a conference or I have something that's going into a swag bag. What I'll do is I'll create a QR code and I'll say, hey, do you want a free copy of my book? I wrote one and I'll give them a postcard with a key QR code and it has again, that UTM attached to it. So I can see, okay, of these cards that I passed out at conferences, how effective were those marketing efforts? Because all too often we're like, okay, well, I handed out all the stuff, but what was the conversion rate of your effort? That is so often the missing piece is we're doing all of these things, but we really don't know how to leverage that data. We don't know how to go in and figure out, okay, I'm doing this, but are my networking efforts actually working? Are going to, is going to a conference really giving me the ROI that I had hoped for? So by getting curious and taking the time to use UTMs in your marketing efforts, you are going to gain so much valuable information. And then in order to, okay, so you have all these UTM set up, but then how do you actually go in and find that data again? Just look it up on YouTube. There are tutorials that will walk you through the whole entire process step by step.
Amy [00:13:14]:
But all you have to do is go under your Google Analytics dashboard. You just have to go in there and then it's under traffic source and this whole like, step by step process. But it's so cool to actually see what's working to have that tangible data because that's giving clues, it's leaving clues for you so you can see where the best return on your investment is. Is. So make sure you click that link below. Start using those utms. Don't be scared of them. If I can do it, so can you.
Amy [00:13:53]:
I am here cheering for you. And until next time, cheers to making the money you want so that you can create the impact you desire.
Comments