Blog Promotion and Trackable Link Analysis
By: Allison Frazer
Process:
In order to create a trackable link, I first grabbed the link to my Intro blog site. With that link, I utilized Google’s UTM Builder to create two trackable links for different media: one for email, and one for LinkedIn. Each link was coded under the “assignment-2” campaign with myself as the source. This allowed me to discover my unique data that cannot be confused with other students’. The email link was sent to 10 individuals. The LinkedIn post was shared with my network of 175 connections on Wednesday, 1/29, at 1:32pm. Below are the two links along with an image of the LinkedIn post I created to share with my network.
Results:
After allowing the data to accumulate for five days, I checked our Google Analytics page, adjusted the timeline to collect data between Jan. 17 and Feb. 2. Navigating to Reports, then to Acquisition and User Acquisition, and changing the data set to “first user source/medium,” I was able to find the results of sharing my links.
The rows with the blue boxes are my LinkedIn and email data, respectively. The data shows that my LinkedIn post had 16 people follow the link, and 10 people followed the email link.
Pictured is the comparison of the two data sets over time.
Analysis:
Both links had considerable engagement. While the email link had 100% of the recipients engage with the link and view the blog post, the LinkedIn link had six more users. However, LinkedIn users spent an average of 17 seconds on site, where email users spent an average of 40 seconds on site. I believe this difference is due to the personal relationship I have with those on the email list that I shared my site with. They would have more interest in what I am posting where a connection on LinkedIn does not know me personally, and therefore will spend less time reading my post.
Next Time:
When sharing a link on social media and messaging sites in the future, I will attempt to make the post more attention grabbing and research further into what that means for different social media sites. Overall, the data is what I expected and I enjoyed the creation of trackable links and gathering and analyzing that data.