HubSpot Ideas

bonnieliu

UTM Link Tracking of Clicks and Form Fills

We recently created a Tracking URL in Hubspot in the hopes of getting insights on the programs we're launching the UTM link for. UTMs are often used to track the performance of campaigns and content. What's currently being provided as a UTM feature doesn't give enough context into how our program is performing--we have no insight to who these people are and if they took action on the page they visited. 

 

From what I understand, it would be helpful to not strip UTM parameters from visited URLs on contact records. If providing this as a searchable value, we can, at a minimum, have the ability to search for contacts related to this activity and/or create workflows that can sync contacts (who visited the UTM link) into our CRM tool.

 

At a very minimum, is it possible to update Tracking URL functionality in Hubspot to be reportable (with UTM parameters)?

17 Replies
KeyWestScott
Key Advisor

What if you created a campaign for this?  Assign the UTM link to the campaign, as well as the landing page and specific CTA.  I've not tried to make a workflow that utulizes a campaign, so not sure if that's possible. But,  you might be able to give these people a custom Contact Property and then reference that property in your workflow.

 

Just thinking off the top of my head.

 

Scott

bonnieliu
Member

@KeyWestScott after some digging on our own, it looks like we're able to find a way to capture some data from the campaign level (not very intuitive or clear if there are other similar/older UTMs in play). We're also trying to see if an active list using "First Page Seen" or "Last Page Seen" filter with the UTM link will work for exporting to our CRM tool. We're hoping this will help provide some of the insights we needed for the specific program being run. Thanks for your suggestion Scott!

WatchfulEye
Member

I'm faced with this issue as well. I created a bunch of tracking links with the intention of tracking traffic sent from a landing page then assigning the contact back to the original salesperson who distributed the content. With the utm parameters stripped, an ambiguous campaign activity, or "first page seen" I can't match the contact to an owner who sent the tracking link.

 

This should be addressed otherwise campaigns don't really help support any CRM behaviors. They only give a general idea of overall campaign performance.

KeyWestScott
Key Advisor

How about this...

 

Since each sales person is "distributing" the content.  Assuming that they are sending out a link to the content.  Make a landing page for each person and then track based upon the customer landing on "Jane's page" or "Joe's page" and then assign based on that???  If you have a lot of sales people this may be an overwhelming task, though.

 

Scott

Shay
HubSpot Product Team

Hi all! Just wanted to chime in here to let you know that we're invested in improving the campaigns app over the next year, plus. We're currently going through a farily extensive upgrade of the infrastructure that powers campaigns in order to be able to bring new features onboard (as mentioned in this idea post).

 

I'd love to learn more about how we could enable this type of tracking for sales-related activitiy from within Campaigns. Any examples, use cases, etc that you can provide are really appreciated, and if there's anyone else out there who'd find something like this valueable please do add an upvote, it helps us understand priority.

 

Thanks for your feedback so far 🙂 

Tommoheban
Member

I think improving the campaigns app is exremeely irelevant. 

What we need is the easy option to store UTMs on the contact level (first utm, last before form submission etc) in a property on the contact level - that CAN be used! for reporting, triggering automations etc.

 

Currently this is not the case, which is absolutely sad.

Vicky
Member | Gold Partner

Hi,

This is absolutely must have, we have same issue with using UTM parameters for segmentation for years.

Hope it will be resolved in the near future

GMirMon
Member

I've been struggling to understand HubSpot's tracking URLs too.

 

I am used to tagging every link with source, medium, campaign, content and sometimes term, with Google's URL builders. My sole reason for wanting to use HubSpot's tracking URLs, is so that the whole team can see in HubSpot, the performance of all our collected activities against a specific campaign initiative. Previously it was only me who would be seeing this in Google Analytics.

 

If I use normal UTMs, HubSpot strips them out. If I just use HubSpot's tracking URLs - what they actually include seems oddly inconsistent:

https://knowledge.hubspot.com/reports/what-do-the-properties-original-source-data-1-and-2-mean

 

Original sourceOriginal source 1Original source 2
Other campaignsCampaignSource / medium
Paid socialSocial media siteCampaign
Organic searchTermSearch engine site
EmailCampaignEmail name

 

If you select "Email" as original source in HubSpot, you get no space to add "content" - same for Paid Social and social.

 

What would work for us is if the HubSpot campaign pages were built purely from the utm_campaign parameter - and then we could build our detailed URLs outside of HubSpot, but still see aggregated campaign activity in Hubspot on the campaign page.

 

Looking forward to hearing about any changes to this tracking, I think they could really help us.

celley
Member

This area has been by far the most frustrating part of the platform for our implementation.  Here's our example use case:

 

We have a multitude of lead sources (as most places do).  For us, it's a mix or resellers, channel partners and salespeople.  Given our industry (healthcare), offline advertising and content is also very relevant (for many leads, it's even more relevant).  Doctors will often consume content via a printed professional journal or even a postcard, in addition to digital.

 

Challenge: Treat all content/media on a level playing field - digital or printed.

Direction: We quickly moved to utilizing UTM parameters across all of our content.  If it's printed content, we include a short redirect URL that effectively bakes in the UTM parameters.  If it's digital, we skip the shortening step.

Problem: Reporting on UTMs has been far worse than expected in HubSpot for the reason GMirMon mentioned above.  Orig Source / 1 / 2 are very inconsistent and UTM Term and UTM Content are virtually useless because they aren't accessible in Other Campaigns reporting, much less being actionable.  Additionally, tying these to a campaign is completely unsuccessful in the metrics presented on the campaign pages themselves; we can't even consider the numbers on those page because they are grossly underrepresented or lack access to any level of detail.

 

I agree with the notion that:

  • Each of these UTM fields should be stored separately in individual containers within the contact record (Mixing source/medium is extremely messy for software, especailly very expensive software)
  • Each of these UTM fields should be actionable or triggerable in workflows
  • And please, eliminate the shell game of "Campaign is Orig Source 1 if Other Campaign but Orig Source 2 if Paid Social, etc."  This type of approach makes it impossible to treat various souces of leads equally
  • Just make them straight fields, like anything else

This is a Make or Break issue for our continued business.  The first reason we bought HubSpot was to understand ROI on specific marketing efforts.  Seven months in, we are not much closer to that goal, even through the diligent efforts of some HubSpot's senior implementators.  Simplifying the approach to UTMs as others have suggested here would enable everyone to pursue and report as they see fit in their specific scenarios.  Despite a massive investment of money and time, this issue could prohibit us from renewing the service.  We're still on the fence and not for lack of trying every which way to work around this issue.

DMacKenzie
Member | Partner

I just wish there was a way to easily see "clicks" on whoever clicks on the shortlink.

 

KeyWestScott
Key Advisor

@DMacKenzie What exactly do you want to see?  Are you looking for the exact person?

 

Scott.

DMacKenzie
Member | Partner

I just want to know how many clicked a certain link.  We do alot of online ads at publications. We set up shortlinks for tracking purposes but it's not easy to figure out how many actually clicked the link without having to ask the pub for stats.

 

KeyWestScott
Key Advisor

Well, from that if they are going to a dedicated landing page then you could create a list that shows page views of a particular page.  But, that would only be valid if that page was only accessible from a particular link/short code.

Other than that if the short code is assigned to a Campaign, then you could get information similar to what's below.  This shows source and medium of the UTM link.

 

Not sure it that helps.

 

KeyWestScott_0-1632249532632.png

Scott.

DMacKenzie
Member | Partner

Again, I'd have to go through every single link - so foar this year, I have about 100 links for different ads. 

It would be nice to have a report show a list by either short link or the UTM link.  And have it show how many CLICKED on that link.  Are you saying "views" are the same as "clicks"?

KeyWestScott
Key Advisor

Yes, in this case a view would be a click, but if you have 100's of ad's that each have different UTM's, but still go to the same page then a simple list on page views wouldn't work...

 

BUT, as I was looking at your response....  Do you use Google Analytics?  If so, and if each UTM used the same campaign name, but differrent source/medium then all that should be in there to see.......

Otherwise, you'd just have to look at each campaign separately, and then again for  the source/medium.

 

Scott.

DMacKenzie
Member | Partner

Yes, we have Google Analytics however I'm new to it. I'm investigating how I can view the UTM string there to glean clicks. Thanks for trying!

 

KeyWestScott
Key Advisor

The easiest way, once your logged into GA, is navigate to Acquisition/Campaigns/All Campaigns.  Look for the campaign in question and then click on that. It will then show you the breakdown of the source/medium, that were used in the UTM.

 

KeyWestScott_0-1632318377865.png

Scott