Link tracking isn't just for reporting on your HubSpot campaigns—it's a powerful tool for onboarding, optimization, and revenue attribution. By understanding which of your campaigns are driving the most traffic and which sources are most effective, you can refine your digital marketing strategy to focus on what's working and improve what isn't.
This might involve investing more in a successful marketing channel, tweaking your content to better appeal to your audience, adjusting your campaign parameters for better tracking, or improving all activities that elevate your brand positioning or lead generation strategy.
A tracking URL is a modified standard URL featuring specific parameters that help capture vital data about your visitors. When a prospect engages with your content—be it an email, a pay-per-click ad, a social post, or a landing page—and lands on your website, the tracking URL steps in.
Tracking URLs provide a direct link between your marketing efforts and revenue generation by allowing you to track a visitor's journey from the moment they click on a campaign to the point of conversion.
For example, when you use a unique tracking URL in a newsletter, you can trace who clicked on the link, how they engaged with your website, and whether or not they filled out a form or eventually became a long-term customer. You can also set up trigger events based on clicks, session time, or conversion point in Hubspot.
With the right tools, you can track general information about who clicks on a link, such as their geographical location, the device they used, and the time they visited. However, due to privacy laws, personally identifiable information (like name, email, etc.) can only be tracked with explicit user consent.
The unique parameters attached to the URL gather key insights about your visitor's journey. Let's take a closer look at the components that make up a tracking link:
So, a tracking URL might look something like this:
The URL indicates that the visitor clicked on a link from an email in your "spring_sale" campaign. This email was sent through your newsletter.
Remember, specific UTM parameters you use can be customized based on your tracking needs. Other parameters you may encounter include:
Pro tip: UTM parameters should be used with discretion. Having too many UTM parameters can make URLs difficult to manage, and make the link look suspicious to users. On the other hand, having too few can lead to a lack of data for making informed decisions. Find a balance for your go-to-market needs.
HubSpot's URL tracking tool, available in Pro and Enterprise tiers, is designed to help you trace the paths of your visitors. The platform's click tracking works by adding UTM parameters to your URLs. The tracking code, which is a piece of JavaScript code that you add to your website, enables this process.
Worth noting—with the latest UTM building updates, you can now conveniently manage UTM parameters directly within HubSpot. This streamlined process saves you time and effort, allowing for seamless analysis of your campaigns.
Keep in mind, free HubSpot users cannot use tracking capabilities. Here are the steps to setting up URL tracking in HubSpot CRM for Pro and Enterprise users:
After making tracking URLs and adding them to your content, the important next step is to analyze the collected data. You can track clicks, understand user behavior, and even update a contact record or custom object in HubSpot based on the collected data. In other words, you're able to track the end-to-end efforts of your demand generation strategy.
You can access your URL tracking data by using HubSpot's Traffic Analytics tool. To analyze the data from a specific tracking URL, navigate to Traffic Analytics from your dashboard and filter by campaign. This indicates the performance of your tracking URLs, including the number of clicks received and the sources of your traffic.
Interpreting the data involves understanding the different KPIs available and how they can be used to measure the performance of your campaigns. Here are some key metrics to track:
Based on data from Databox benchmarking, B2B companies typically experience a bounce rate of around 63%. However, top companies in the group achieve a bounce rate under 40%.
4. Conversion Rate: The percentage of visitors who complete a desired action on your site, such as filling out a HubSpot form or making a purchase. As another benchmark example, B2B companies that run Google Ads typically achieve a conversion rate of around 4.25%.
5. Average Session Duration: Average time visitors spend on your site during a single visit. A longer session duration suggests that visitors are finding your content engaging and valuable. Website sessions typically last one minute—which means you have a short time to capture and maintain a visitor's interest.
A high conversion rate indicates that your content is effectively persuading visitors to take action. A good conversion rate can vary greatly depending on your industry, ICP, and the specific action or goal, but 2-5% is often considered the average conversion rate.
By tracking this metric, you'll be able to identify opportunities to optimize your campaigns and improve your activities.
To protect user privacy and follow data protection rules like GDPR (even for US companies), it should be top of mind to handle URL tracking data responsibly. This includes obtaining necessary consents from users, anonymizing data where possible, and ensuring that data is securely stored and processed.
To get the most out of HubSpot's tracking URL capabilities, here are a few best practices to follow:
The parameters used in a tracking URL need to be consistent for accurate data analysis. Using 'email' in one campaign and 'Email' in another can lead to confusion as analytics tools often treat these as separate mediums due to case sensitivity.
To avoid this, maintain a standardized naming convention across all campaigns. Consistent parameter usage ensures that your data is neatly organized and easily interpreted. If you're working with a team, establish clear guidelines and keep up with training/check ins to ensure everyone follows the same practices.
If you have identical or very similar content on different URLs, you may confuse search engines, leading to lower SEO rankings.
Canonical tags can help by specifying which URL is the "main" one. This way, even if tracking parameters create multiple URLs for the same page, search engines know which one to prioritize. In HubSpot, you can edit a page's canonical URL in its advanced settings. This helps avoid confusion caused by tracking data from duplicate pages.
Pro Tip: If you use the same tracking URL across multiple campaigns or channels, you'll struggle to pinpoint which one is driving the most traffic or conversions. Create different links for each. With unique URLs, you can easily identify top-performing campaigns and those that might need a little extra attention.
Redirects are used to send users and search engines to a different URL from the one they originally requested. This is useful when a page's URL has been changed. In HubSpot, you can set up redirect chains from any URL on a HubSpot-hosted domain to any other link. This guarantees the link trace is associated with the correct page, even if its URL itself has been changed.
URL shorteners can make your links more manageable and visually appealing — and yes, many URL shorteners preserve UTM parameters. When you shorten a URL that includes those parameters, the short URL should redirect to the original URL, including the full code sequence.
HubSpot has a built-in URL shortener tool, and you can also use a third-party URL shortener like Bitly or TinyURL to shorten your URLs before using them in your campaigns. When these tools shorten the original URL link, they automatically incorporate the code. This means that you can still obtain the tracking information from the UTM code, even if it is not visible to you.
Pro Tip: Note that some URL shorteners may also obscure the destination link. This can sometimes lead to issues with user trust, as people might be hesitant to click on a link when they can't see where it leads.
Linking the two platforms via the native integration allows you to analyze the data from different perspectives, such as traffic sources, behavior flow, and conversion rates. You can add Google Analytics tracking code to a domain, blog, or any page on your website.
The HubSpot tracking code is unique to each HubSpot account and allows HubSpot to monitor your website traffic. The tracking code is automatically included on HubSpot blog pages, landing pages, and website pages.
If you have any externally hosted pages (i.e., main site pages or campaign-specific landing pages not on HubSpot), you must install the HubSpot tracking code manually to capture analytics for those pages. Other examples of such pages or external platforms may include:
URL tracking is not limited to digital channels. You can also utilize it for tracking offline promotion efforts.
For example, create unique tracking URLs via QR codes for print advertisements, direct mail campaigns, or billboards. Simply include a custom QR code on print material and incentivize folks to scan the code with their smartphones, and you'll be able to track it from there. Try it below!
Effectively tracking URLs involves consistent application, regular analysis, and frequent adjustments. But the benefits it brings in terms of visitor data, campaign optimization, and improved conversions are well worth the effort.
But remember, link tracking is just one tiny aspect of the full potential of your CRM. That's why we've compiled the HubSpot Implementation Checklist. This guide covers every step you need to take, from setting up your account to launching your first campaign, and all the tweaks to the system from there.
Whether you're new to the platform or you've been using it for a while, this checklist can serve as your roadmap to successful CRM implementation.