By default, Salesforce Marketing Cloud (SFMC) isn’t integrated with Google Analytics for appending UTM tracking querystring variables to each link. The documentation on Google Analytics integration typically points towards Google Analytics 360 integration… you may want to look at this if you really want to take your analytics to the next level since it allows you to connect customer site engagement from Analytics 360 into your Marketing Cloud reports.

For basic Google Analytics Campaign Tracking integration, though, it’s fairly easy to automatically append each of your UTM parameters to every outbound link in a Salesforce Marketing Cloud email. There are basically 3 elements:

1. Account-wide link tracking parameters in the Account Setup.
2. Additional Link parameters in the Email Builder that you can optionally configure to UTM parameters.
3. Track Links enabled in the Email Send wizard.

Google Analytics Link Tracking at SFMC Business Unit Level

I try to avoid extra steps at send time because once you execute a campaign, there’s no turning back. Sending an email campaign and then remembering you did not have campaign tracking enabled is quite the headache, so I encourage the basic UTM parameters be tracked automatically at the account level within SFMC.

To do this, an administrator of your account will navigate to your Account Setup (an option in the top right under your username):

• Navigate to Setup > Administration > Data Management > Parameter Management
• That opens the settings page where you can configure your Web Analytics Connector

By default, the parameters are setup as follows for internal tracking of campaigns:

cm_ven=ExactTarget&cm_cat=%%EmailName_%%&cm_pla=%%ListName%%&cm_ite=%%LinkName%%&cm_ainfo=%%AdditionalInfo_%%&%%__AdditionalEmailAttribute1%%&%%__AdditionalEmailAttribute2%%&%%__AdditionalEmailAttribute3%%&%%__AdditionalEmailAttribute4%%&%%__AdditionalEmailAttribute5%%

My recommendation is to update this to:

cm_ven=ExactTarget&cm_cat=%%EmailName_%%&cm_pla=%%ListName%%&cm_ite=%%LinkName%%&cm_ainfo=%%AdditionalInfo_%%&%%__AdditionalEmailAttribute1%%&%%__AdditionalEmailAttribute2%%&%%__AdditionalEmailAttribute3%%&%%__AdditionalEmailAttribute4%%&%%__AdditionalEmailAttribute5%%&utm_campaign=SFMC&utm_source=%%ListName%%&utm_medium=Email&utm_content=%%EmailName_%%&utm_term=%%__AdditionalEmailAttribute1%%

This adds the following:

• utm_campaign is set to SFMC
• utm_medium is set to Email
• utm_source is set dynamically to your List Name
• utm_content is set dynamically to your Email Name
• utm_term is optionally set using an additional email attribute from your email builder

Save your settings and the parameter will be appended for that account.

Updating Your Additional Email Attribute

I’ve hidden the account-level data from this screenshot, but you can see that now I can modify the additional email attribute parameter to set the utm_term option. I may want to use this for basic classifications of my email like upsell, cross-sell, retention, news, how-to, etc.

Track Links When Sending in SFMC

By default, Track Clicks is enabled when sending in SFMC and I’d recommend never disabling that option. If you do, it doesn’t just remove your UTM tracking, it removes all internal campaign tracking for that send within Marketing Cloud.

That’s it… from now on whenever emails are sent via that account, the proper Google Analytics UTM Tracking querystring is appended so that you can see the results of your email marketing within your Google Analytics account.

Salesforce Marketing Cloud Help: Manage Parameters

If your company needs implementation or integration assistance with Salesforce Marketing Cloud (or other Salesforce-related services), please request assistance through Highbridge. Disclosure: I am a partner in Highbridge.

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