Social media is a great way to snag leads. There’s just one problem…
The old scattershot way of social media marketing – a post here and a post there – isn’t efficient. We post on different platforms and we just hope that it’s all working.
As marketers, we should know what’s working and what isn’t. We can’t afford to waste time on activities that aren’t bringing returns.
And that’s why UTM link tracking is essential.
Page Views Can Be More Specific – And More Valuable To Your Marketing Efforts
If you’re bringing traffic in from several sources, page views alone can’t give you the data that UTM link tracking does. Tracking views can’t help you with big decisions regarding your social media strategy.
Take this hypothetical example…
You’ve just released a post on Facebook. Page views blow up. Now you know where to focus, right? People obviously love your Facebook content.
So you scale down on the other social media platforms and… your traffic stops.
Oops. If only you’d used a UTM to tell where your traffic was coming from. You’d be able to see that the spike was from a Twitter post from the previous day. The fact that it happened on the day of the Facebook post was a coincidence.
Situations such as these do happen. Which is why hundreds of marketers, businesses and solopreneurs are making a fuss about better link tracking with the use of UTM builders and trackers.
But How Do You Even Track A Link?
If you’re already familiar with UTM’s, skip this section.
Still here? Okay – here’s the nutshell version.
UTM is short for Urchin Tracking Module. It’s basically a piece of code to attach to your source links.
For example, you’ve got a link to your website in both YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. It’s all the same link – so you’re in the dark about where exactly your traffic is coming from.
You’ll grab this link and run it through a link builder – once for each platform. So you’ll end up with 3 different links.
Place each of these links on the respective platform and voila – you’ve upgraded to more specific link tracking. Meaning you’ll always know exactly where your traffic is coming from.
Far better than using standard page views without the UTM.
Too Confusing? Don’t Worry, It’s Simple…
If the above section confused you at all, don’t worry.
There are link builders out there who do most of the work for you. Google Analytics has a built-in link builder. But there’s also platforms like Weberlo – that makes link tracking simple. And saves you the hassle of running your link through a builder 3 times (setup is more automatic on Weberlo).
In Weberlo, our very own web app, you simply create a link to a page. Then you add sources to each page. And then you grab the automatically-shortened link and paste it where it needs to be.
Simple as that.
Back to the subject at hand… (I’ll tell you more about Weberlo in a second).
Budget-Wise And Time-Efficient
So there are two major positives to UTM link tracking. It’s good for the budget, and time-efficient too.
I like painting scenarios, so here goes…
First let’s say you’re outsourcing most of your work on your social media channels. So you’re paying $X per hour to get posts and videos up. But you don’t know which of the sources are pulling the best traffic.
So you install link trackers, and you soon discover that YouTube is bringing in 90% of your traffic. Furthermore, leads coming from YouTube convert 50% better in the end.
This would mean that around 95% of your business is coming from YouTube. So the money spent on other platforms is, quite simply, a waste. You could be spending that money on YouTube to amplify your returns, right?
It’s for revelations such as these that we track links, not page views.
But let’s say you’re doing everything yourself. And you’re spending 30 hours a week on social media content.
10 hours on each Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube.
Apply that to the budget scenario, and you’re essentially wasting 20 hours a week.
What else could you be doing with that time?
Deeper Analysis
The above scenarios are very basic. So, here’s how these scenarios tie into real life…
The magic number you’re looking for is the cost per result. Whether the result you’re looking for is signup, a purchase, a reply—whatever the case may be.
And here’s how to find that number.
Simply take the time – or money – spent on each platform. Divide that by results per source, and there it is.
Here’s an example of the first time, and then money.
Let’s say you spent 10 hours on YouTube. This brought in 50 results for the week. So 10×60 (to get minutes) is 600 / 50. This means you’re spending an average of 12 minutes per result on YouTube.
If Twitter only brought in 7 leads, but you only spent 5 hours there. So it’s costing you 43 minutes per result.
And with cash… let’s say YouTube costs you $500. So, 500/50 is $10 per result. Twitter at $250 (250/7) would give you $36 per result.
And there you have it. Knowing your cost per result is super important in all marketing activities. So make sure you understand the above section.
If you’re still having trouble though, drop a comment down below. I’ll help you out.
What’s So Special About Weberlo?
There are many great software out there that make marketing easier. And I don’t, for a second, discount any of those.
But our whole idea is to have one platform off of which to work. One dashboard that helps you with all aspects of your business.
So we started with UTM building and tracking.
With Weberlo, you can build, shorten and track your UTM’s all on a single dashboard.
It’s far more convenient than using 3 different platforms for the same thing.
Weberlo’s also free for 10k clicks – you can sign up for that deal here.
What’s Your Cost Per Result?
This is basic stuff. But a solid foundation is extremely important in everything in life. And now that your foundation has been laid in terms of UTMs, why not get yourself a kickass link builder?
Or you could go for the big boy – our Weberlo web app. You can sign up for that here.
Whatever you do, make sure you’re tracking those links. Your money and your time depends on it.
