In this article, we'll show you how to use Google Analytics to track your readers' website activity that originates from your Vertical Response-powered email newsletters.  This will allow you to learn how successfully you're moving readers from your email newsletters to your website, and how you can do a better job of driving them to action online.

Vertical Response Adapter

Google Analytics obtains 5 parameters (pieces of data) from the URLs of your email campaign. These parameters will help you slice your data in various ways on the Google Analytics site. Once you have enabled Google Analytics in your Vertical Response account, it does all the heavy lifting for you and adds everything you need to track your links. Here are the parameters that Vertical Response will automatically track:

• Source: {the name of your account/organization in Vertical Response}

• Medium: {type of communications material, usually an email}

• Campaign: {the subject line of your email} (This is important later.)

• Keyword: {the link’s click text, or a generic placeholder in the absence of such} (NOTE: By always using click text, especially where images are concerned, you will have a more specific value for Keyword than the generic placeholder we will assign it.)

• Ad Content: {the merge field value that you will select before launching the campaign} (This can be ANY field in your database whether it’s {FIRST_NAME}, or {EMAIL_ADDRESS} for instance).

In order to track the URLs in your campaigns, Google needs to know which links you want them to tag. They will ignore any other domains not listed. You will need to go to your My Profile page in your Vertical Response account, locate the section named Google Analytics Settings and click “Edit”.

Here's where you will enter your domains to be tracked. Use the "Add Domain" link to do this. Usually, you will want to include http://www.yourorganization.org, as well as any other sites (i.e. blogs/wikis/etc.) that are connected to your organization.

Once you've entered all of the domains you want to track, make sure to click "Submit Changes" at the bottom of the page. There is no limit to the number of domains you can track and you can make changes to this at any time.

 
After defining which domains you want to track, select which merge field you want to use as the "Ad Content" variable. You'll do this on the Launch screen, so don't overlook it.  This is a key step, because it enables the Google Analytics/Vertical Response adapter.

At this point, you've created your campaign, and are ready to send your newsletter.