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.
Why do my Google Analytics campaign URLs not show up in reports?
-
Hi guys,
I'm puzzled because of my affiliate campaign URLs not showing up properly in my Google Analytics reports. I'll try to explain what I did and I hope some of you can provide advice on how to proceed from there on.
What do I want to do?
Actually, what I want to do is quite simple. I tagged a few URLs for Google Analytics to show up in my campaign reports. I used the URL builder to do so. Example: http://www.nhad.de?utm_source=affiliate&utm_medium=zanox&utm_content=banner&utm_campaign=105x139.Is that the entire URL?
Uhm, no. Because of the active de-duplication script on our website, I need to put some characters in front of it: **www.nhad.de/affiliate.aspx?NETWORK=ZANOX&NEXTURL=**http://www.nhad.de?utm_source=affiliate&utm_medium=zanox&utm_content=banner&utm_campaign=105x139.Yikes. Yes, I know.
What do I see?
Basically, when I paste the above url and run it in (for example) Chrome, only this shows up in my browser: www.nhad.de/?utm_source=affiliate. In my Analytics reports, the campaign URL is not recognised, just the source in my traffic report. The medium is indicated with 'not set'.What am I doing wrong, and what can I do to make my campaigns appear in Analytics?
Best,
Bas
-
Hi Lynn,
I'll be sure to update our webteam so we can tackle this. Thank you!
-
Hi Bas,
You are 302 redirecting your initial url to your final url (www.nhad.de/?utm_source=affiliate) and that is why your are not getting your data in analytics. The redirect is kicking in before anything gets recorded and your final url only has the utm_source set so that is all you are seeing.
It seems to be an issue with your redirection script since in the url below you have a 'NEXTURL' variable that looks correct:
**www.nhad.de/affiliate.aspx?NETWORK=ZANOX&NEXTURL=**http://www.nhad.de?utm_source=affiliate&utm_medium=zanox&utm_content=banner&utm_campaign=105x139But the final url you get to is
www.nhad.de/?utm_source=affiliate (missing the rest of the utm variables)Maybe the script is not parsing the & sign properly?
If you get the redirects to forward to the complete nexturl variable then your data will be recorded properly in analytics:
www.nhad.de?utm_source=affiliate&utm_medium=zanox&utm_content=banner&utm_campaign=105x139
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
-
Where are redirect.viglink's coming from??
I am getting redirect . vigilink links my blog clicks and I don't use the Viglink affiliate program. I have no idea where these links are coming from or how to get rid of them? I was told my another company that I have affiliate links with that they are overriding their affiliate links.
Affiliate Marketing | Oct 11, 2020, 12:15 PM | TheFearlessForeigner0 -
Conversions tracking on another website
Hi guys, Situation: A website selling a mix of products from various vendors. When a product's Buy Now get clicked, it redirects to the vendor's website so the order can be placed there. Question: How do I track all these conversions reliably? Is there any shortcut? Also, what do they need to do technically to make it work, and will it send to my GA or is it any tool that will record these conversions? Does anyone do this actively? Thanks for ALL the ANSWERS!
Affiliate Marketing | Aug 6, 2018, 1:52 PM | Katarina-Borovska0 -
Person using expired domain and its links to drive traffic
Hi, I know about people using expired domains to drive juice to their primary site but what about people using AN expired domain as their primary site (totally changing that site into a trashy affiliate-marketing vehicle)? The site I'm looking at is thegunzone.com. It has, according to Semrush, almost 38K links. It used to be a legit 17-year-old firearms hobby site, and this is what it originally looked like: http://web.archive.org/web/20120213184627/http://thegunzone.com:80/ Here is its last page before it closed and the domain purchased by the affiliate marketer: http://web.archive.org/web/20170315084035/http://www.thegunzone.com/ It closed around February of 2017, and some affiliate marketer bought it and all its backlinks. However, all those backlinks, which were previously to various articles, are now directed back to those articles (which don't exist anymore) but the homepage, including Wikipedia links. Here's an example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polygonal_rifling At the bottom, in the 7th Reference, there's a link to an article called " "Learning About Shooting . . ." but if you click on the original link, it just goes to thegunzone.com homepage. Again, the site's totally different. And there are just thousands of such backlinks to former articles that don't exist anymore but are redirected to this schlocky site's homepage (and it's passing its juice through too). My question is this: this cannot be kosher with Google backlinking policies, right? Is this prevalent on the internet? Why hasn't thegunzone.com been found out and its rankings penalized yet? And how do I report him? I see tons of other sites using this basic strategy too on search results with various hunting keywords. (Disclosure: I do own a hunting/firearms blog, but I don't do any backlinking at all.) Any help would be sincerely appreciated.
Affiliate Marketing | Oct 31, 2019, 4:33 PM | HandyWoman1 -
What's the best way to go about making Duplicate Content Pages on my domain for affiliates?
Hello, I would like to make a bunch of duplicate pages of my site's Home Page, that way affiliates of mine can have a page of their own with links specialized to themselves littered throughout the page. What's the best practice going about this without jeopardizing domain authority from tons of duplicate content signals firing off?
Affiliate Marketing | Aug 4, 2017, 12:29 PM | Benavest0 -
What is your opinion on Alex Becker / Sourcewave?
This is only meant to be a discussion. Is he legit? Is he too blackhat and the next update may make him a lot less relevant? Is he worth paying attention to?
Affiliate Marketing | Sep 22, 2016, 6:36 PM | Edward_Sturm0 -
How to track Affiliate Clicks to Google Analytics
Hi, We would like to track the affiliate link clicks. Is there any way to track it from Google Analytic? Rajiv
Affiliate Marketing | Jun 30, 2015, 12:23 PM | gamesecure0 -
In what ways would an affiliate site be okay with Google?
I know Google has slammed affiliate sites hard. But affiliate marketing can be a real business and had an idea for one, but I would like to know if ALL affiliate sites are looked at as evil in Google's eyes, or if it's just those with thin and duplicate content in the product descriptions. I know they want brands to come up ahead of affiliates of that brand, and that makes sense. If I sold Acme Widgets products, Acme Widgets itself should come up ahead of my site. But what if the site sold widgets in general, with the term widgets not a branded keyword? If all product descriptions are unique and well-written content, on a site that is high quality, would it still be downgraded by Google just because there are affilate links in it? I guess overall the question could be boiled down to, are affiliate sites hit because they have horrible content or because they have links to affiliate programs in them?
Affiliate Marketing | Sep 2, 2012, 12:44 AM | bizzer0 -
Google Analytics Tracking Pixels for Third-Party sites???
Hello, Does anyone know if it is possible to track an event on a third party site and have it post back to your Google Analytics account? For example, I am sending traffic to a partners site and I want to know if that traffic I am sending them will hit a specific point of conversion (a sale) and I'm wondering if it possible to place a tracking pixel on their thankyou.html page that gets recorded in my google analytics?
Affiliate Marketing | Jan 16, 2013, 5:17 PM | shawn810