Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Unsolved Capturing Source Dynamically for UTM Parameters
-
Does anyone have a tutorial on how to dynamically capture the referring source to be populated in UTM parameters for Google Analytics?
We want to syndicate content and be able to see all of the websites that provided referral traffic for this specific objective. We want to set a specific utm_medium and utm_campaign but have the utm_source be dynamic and capture the referring website.
If we set a permanent utm_source, it would appear the same for all incoming traffic.
Thanks in advance!
-
@peteboyd said in Capturing Source Dynamically for UTM Parameters:
Thanks in advance!
UTM (Urchin Tracking Module) parameters are tags that you can add to the end of a URL in order to track the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns. These parameters are used by Google Analytics to help you understand how users are interacting with your website and where they are coming from.
There are five different UTM parameters that you can use:
utm_source: This parameter specifies the source of the traffic, such as "google" or "Facebook".
utm_medium: This parameter specifies the medium of the traffic, such as "cpc" (cost-per-click) or "social".
utm_campaign: This parameter specifies the name of the campaign, such as "spring_sale" or "promotion".
utm_term: This parameter specifies the term or keywords used in the campaign, such as "shoes" or "dress".
utm_content: This parameter specifies the content of the ad, such as the headline or the call-to-action.
To capture the source dynamically for UTM parameters, you can use JavaScript to get the value of the document. referrer property. This property returns the URL of the page that is linked to the current page. You can then use this value to set the utm_source parameter dynamically.
For example, you might use the following code to set the utm_source parameter based on the referring URL:
Copy code
var utmSource = '';if (document.referrer.indexOf('google') !== -1) {
utmSource = 'google';
} else if (document.referrer.indexOf('facebook') !== -1) {
utmSource = 'facebook';
}// Add the utm_source parameter to the URL
var url = 'http://www.example.com?utm_source=' + utmSource;
This code will set the utm_source parameter to "google" if the user came to the page from a Google search or to "Facebook" if the user came to the page from Facebook. If the user came to the page from another source, the utm_source parameter will be left empty.You can then use this modified URL in your marketing campaigns to track the effectiveness of your campaigns and understand where your traffic is coming from.
-
@peteboyd you can refer to this tutorial: https://www.growwithom.com/2020/06/16/track-dynamic-traffic-google-tag-manager/
Should meet your requirements perfectly - using GTM to replace a static value with the url in your UTM Source.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Unsolved Why My site pages getting video index viewport issue?
Hello, I have been publishing a good number of blogs on my site Flooring Flow. Though, there's been an error of the video viewport on some of my articles. I have tried fixing it but the error is still showing in Google Search Console. Can anyone help me fix it out?
Technical SEO | | mitty270 -
Why Product pages are throwing Missing field "image" and Missing field "price" in Wordpress Woocommerce
I have a wordpress wocommerce website where I have uploaded 100s of products but it's giving me error in GSC under merchant listing tab. When I tested it show missing field image and missing field price. I have done everything according to https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/product#merchant-listing-experiences and applied fixed i.e. images are 800x800 and price range is also there. What else can be done here?!merchant listing.jpg
Technical SEO | | Ravi_Rana0 -
Unsolved MOZ API to Google Data Studio
Dopes MOZ have anything like this? https://www.semrush.com/features/google-data-studio-connector/
Product Support | | WebMarkets0 -
Unsolved Duplicate LocalBusiness Schema Markup
Hello! I've been having a hard time finding an answer to this specific question so I figured I'd drop it here. I always add custom LocalBusiness markup to clients' homepages, but sometimes the client's website provider will include their own automated LocalBusiness markup. The codes I create often include more information. Assuming the website provider is unwilling to remove their markup, is it a bad idea to include my code as well? It seems like it could potentially be read as spammy by Google. Do the pros of having more detailed markup outweigh that potential negative impact?
Local Website Optimization | | GoogleAlgoServant0 -
What's Causing My Extremely Low Bounce Rate
My client's site that is reporting an under 10% bounce rate for all sources. Direct is the highest at 8%. I'm no expert in GA but wondering if there is a problem with the analytics/tag manager code on the site. I'm especially concerned about the GTM body script being in an iframe which I read could be trouble. <!-- Google Tag Manager (noscript) -->
Reporting & Analytics | | bradsimonis
<noscript><iframe src="https://www.googletagmanager.com/ns.html?id=GTM-MWGMNW6"
height="0" width="0" style="display:none;visibility:hidden"></iframe></noscript>
<!-- End Google Tag Manager (noscript) --> You can see all the source code here:
view-source:https://nfinit.com/0 -
Does Google read dynamic canonical tags?
Does Google recognize rel=canonical tag if loaded dynamically via javascript? Here's what we're using to load: <script> //Inject canonical link into page head if (window.location.href.indexOf("/subdirname1") != -1) { canonicalLink = window.location.href.replace("/kapiolani", ""); } if (window.location.href.indexOf("/subdirname2") != -1) { canonicalLink = window.location.href.replace("/straub", ""); } if (window.location.href.indexOf("/subdirname3") != -1) { canonicalLink = window.location.href.replace("/pali-momi", ""); } if (window.location.href.indexOf("/subdirname4") != -1) { canonicalLink = window.location.href.replace("/wilcox", ""); } if (canonicalLink != window.location.href) { var link = document.createElement('link'); link.rel = 'canonical'; link.href = canonicalLink; document.head.appendChild(link); } script>
Technical SEO | | SoulSurfer80 -
XML Sitemap and unwanted URL parameters
We currently don't have an XML sitemap for our site. I generated one using Screaming Frog and it looks ok, but it also contains my tracking url parameters (ref=), which I don't want Google to use, as specified in GWT. Cleaning it will require time and effort which I currently don't have. I also think that having one could help us on Bing. So my question is: Is it better to submit a "so-so" sitemap than having none at all, or the risks are just too high? Could you explain what could go wrong? Thanks !
Technical SEO | | jfmonfette0 -
Dynamically changing a title with javascript
Hi, I asked our IT team to be able to write custom page titles in our CMS and they came up with a solution that writes the title dynamically with javascript. When I look on the page, I see the title in the browser, but when I look in the source code, I see the original page title. I am thinking that Google won't see the new javascript title, so it will not be indexed and have no impact on SEO. Am I right ?
Technical SEO | | jfmonfette0