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Marketing Channels
A marketing channel is a portal used to support specific areas of your business, such as social media or email. The system currently supports nine different marketing channels to define webpage traffic on Adobe Analytics. These nine different marketing channels can be segmented using an Urchin Tracking Module (UTM). UTM's are parameters added to a webpage's URL to track and segment traffic coming to your page. The use of UTM's allow for analysts to build out customer workspaces or marketing channel reports to display their findings to stakeholders.
Nine marketing channels
Direct
Traffic qualifies as direct when users access the webpage by typing the link directly into the browser, such as from a bookmark.
Display
Traffic qualifies as display when it is coming from an advertisement that is a graphical screen on the internet. Display advertisements allow you to use images, audio, and visuals to communicate your advertising message. For traffic to be attributed to this channel, use the following UTM parameter:
- utm_medium=display
Traffic qualifies as email when the webpage is accessed through the user's email. Marketo and Pardot are examples of an email marketing channel. For traffic to be attributed to this channel, use the following UTM parameter:
- utm_medium=email
Paid search
Traffic qualifies as paid search when it comes from advertisements placed in the search engine's results. For traffic to be attributed to this channel, use the following UTM parameter:
- utm_medium=paidsearch
Organic search
Traffic qualifies as organic search when it organically appears as a result in the users' search engine, meaning there was no payment for it to come up in search engine results.
Paid social
Traffic qualifies as paid social when a webpage is accessed through a paid campaign link on a social media platform. For traffic to be attributed to this channel, use the following UTM parameter:
- utm_medium=paidsocial
Organic social
Traffic qualifies as organic social when the webpage is accessed through an organic link on a social media platform, such as a tweet or a post. The processing rule in Adobe Analytics breaks down organic social based on the top level domain it came from, such as facebook.com or twitter.com. For traffic to be attributed to this channel, the traffic has to originate from a social media domain and utm_medium cannot contain 'paidsocial'.
Referring domains
Traffic is qualified as coming from referring domains when your own webpage link is accessed from another webpage that is not a search engine or social media platform.
HighSpot
Traffic qualifies as HighSpot when the webpage is accessed through a referral link on HighSpot. For traffic to be attributed to this channel, use the following UTM parameter:
- utm_medium=highspot
UTM parameters
Medium
Medium identifies the vehicle being used to market the company, an example being social media or email. It answers the question of "How is your traffic getting to you?".
The Marketing Channel report supports nine mediums.
Campaign
Campaign identifies the subchannel that is the source of traffic or the touchpoint source. It answers the question of "Where is this traffic coming from?". For what is typically considered 'utm_source' to be captured by Adobe Analytics within the Marketing Channel Detail dimension, we recommend it to be included in the utm_campaign string. For example:
- utm_campaign=fb_pp2
Source
Source is used to track a higher level subchannel and is the platform where your advertisement is located.
Other UTM parameters
Businesses who use the following UTM parameters can report on them by using filters on the 'querystring' parameter.
Content (optional)
Content is advertisement content and an optional value. It is used to track more than one of your own marketing pieces found on one webpage. These marketing pieces can be differentiated by which one generates more traffic or what kind of traffic is being generated. If content is not provided, it will appear in analytics as "na".
Term (optional)
Term identifies keywords in advertisements for paid campaigns and is an optional value. It is similar to content in that you are tracking your own keywords in paid campaigns. If term is not provided, it will appear in analytics as "na".
Manually build out an UTM by tagging your URL's with a '?' after the top level domain of your URL (after the .com, .html, etc.). After the question mark, insert the word 'utm' followed by an underscore and the main UTM parameter of your traffic source (medium, campaign, content, term).
Examples
https://www.stryker.com/us/en/emergency-care/products/power-pro-2.html?utm_source=fb&utm_medium=paidsocial&utm_campaign=pp2&
utm_content=ad4&utm_term=industry_first
https://www.stryker.com/us/en/emergency-care/products/power-pro-2.html?utm_source=fb&utm_medium=paidsocial&utm_campaign=pp2&
utm_content=ad1&utm_term=ambulance_cot
Key
Original URL in black.
Separator between original URL and various parameters in gray.
Medium is indicated in teal as paid social.
Campaign is indicated in orange as the name of the marketing initiative.
Content is indicated in blue as another datapoint to subdivide campaign.
Term is indicated in gold as another data point to subdivide content.
Source is indicated in purple as fb = Facebook
An ampersand is necessary if you want to separate multiple types of UTM parameters (medium, campaign, content, term) in gray.
Tips for uniformity and tracking
- UTM generators are available instead of building out UTM's manually
- All UTM's should be tracked and recorded
- Use all lowercase letters for convenience
- Be consistent across the business with how you identify campaigns (Facebook is identified as 'fb', Twitter is identified as 'tw', and LinkedIn is identified as 'li')
- Keep your format the same for all UTM's
- Use underscores instead of spaces when writing out your UTM's
- Break your UTM's down to the next level for even more segmented data. For example, add in the campaign name after 'utm_campaign='
For reporting purposes, Adobe Analytics allows users to build out workspaces using the marketing channel data triggered by UTM's. There are a variety of ways to break down your data when building out workspaces by using dimensions, metrics, date ranges, segments, and functions to provide more clarity on where exactly webpage traffic is coming from.
To get the most accurate metric for visits per marketing channel, use the 'MARKETING CHANNEL INSTANCES' metric.
To attribute a conversion such as DOCUMENT DOWNLOADS or VIDEOS PLAYED, add the metric to the table as shown in screenshot below. You can adjust the attribution model, such as FIRST TOUCH or LAST TOUCH, by right clicking on the metric and selecting from the menu.
