The common knowledge is that in Google Analytics you use ‘UTM codes’, while in Adobe Analytics you use the ‘Tracking Code’ to measure digital marketing campaigns. What if I told you that campaign tracking is done exactly the same way in both Google Analytics and Adobe Analytics? But that depending on your particular case there is a solution that will let you get more out of measuring your overall paid digital marketing campaigns. Let’s break it down.
Geoff Ogrin, a Sr. Consultant here at Softcrylic, published a great two-part series covering best practices when it comes to digital analytics campaign tracking codes. If you haven’t read that I recommend you do as landing the right campaign tracking code taxonomy, and establishing a governance process for your organization to maintain that taxonomy, will be the key to understanding your digital marketing efforts consistently and effectively. With a tracking code process in place, the next essential is how to leverage it in an Analytics solution. This is what we are going to be talking about here, and specifically for web properties using Adobe Analytics or Google Analytics.
| utm parameter | GA Acquisition Reports | GA Reporting API | Description |
| utm_source | Source | ga:source | The source of referrals to your property. |
| utm_medium | Medium | ga:medium | The type of referrals to your property (e.g. email, cpc, etc.) |
| utm_campaign | Campaign | ga:campaign | The name of a marketing campaign sending users to your property |
| utm_content | Ad Content | ga:adContent | A description of the advertising or promotional copy used to send users to your property. |
| utm_term | Keyword | ga:keyword | The keyword searched by users to reach your property. |
Note: as of the writing of this post, Google Analytics 4 has no additional documentation on Acquisition reports, signaling the above table may still be true in the latest iteration of GA.
In effect, these 5 ‘UTM codes’ are what make up the campaign tracking code for Google Analytics. The genius of this approach has been the Default Marketing Channel groupings that Google Analytics has also pre-defined. Those definitions are based on what values the Acquisition reports collect. Acquisition reports get their values come from UTM codes. Therefore, by simply following Google’s instructions to tag links with UTM codes, and using their pre-defined definitions, you will be able to:
These pre-defined dependencies create a data flow that ends up looking something like this:
However, if you solely relied on Google’s documentation – “There are 5 parameters you can add to your URLs” – you would not be the only person to think you are limited to only UTMs and to these 5 specifically. In fact, I have spoken to countless people that will request for ‘UTM links’ when referring to a campaign tracking code even though they are using Adobe Analytics! While I appreciate Google for instilling this concept in the day-to-day lingo of many digital organizations, I see it now as a double-edged sword which has become one of my biggest frustrations in guiding teams to success.
Almost everyone will refer to the “source, medium, campaign” as the backbone of campaign tracking. On the one hand you have teams tagging links with tracking codes; great. On the other you have the same teams self-limiting their campaign tracking to three dimensions; not great. Many people are either not aware of utm_content and utm_term, or perhaps don’t give them importance. Undoubtedly because Google states in their docs:
An even smaller sliver of experts is aware of the special utm_id parameter that populates the secrete Campaign Code report. I have found it so secret that it has become one of my interview screening questions. Really! I’ll dig more into this awesome parameter in a future blog post.
| utm parameter | GA Acquisition Reports | GA Reporting API | Description |
| utm_id | Campaign Code | ga:campaignId | Hardcoded campaign ID |
Note: as of the writing of this post, I have not been able to find any reference nor documentation on Campaign Code (utm_id) for the new version Google Analytics 4. Makes me wonder if Google is doing away with it for some reason…
This is where I think Adobe Analytics sometimes gets a ‘bad rap’ because the truth is you need to do those mappings yourself. But while on the surface it may seem more complicated, the reality is by manually configuring those mappings it forces you to get familiarized with the intricacies and build a process around campaign tracking. In a sense, Adobe’s double-edged sword…
A campaign tracking process is extremely beneficial for your overall digital marketing architecture because organizations rarely only depend on a stand-alone Analytics solution. To help support a successful digital marketing strategy you need to think of measurement, but also activation. That involves other solutions and preserving consistent campaign measurement will be key. Especially when you start thinking of Data Science and Multi-Touch Attribution use cases.
Back to Adobe’s tracking codes, the good news is configuring those mappings is straightforward. It consists of the same steps outlined for Google, and I will show you how to:
Use your tag manager’s non-techie features to capture tracking codes. No need to worry about all those technical Adobe Analytics terms you might run into… ‘AppMeasurement’, ‘doPlugins’, ‘getQueryParam’… etc… Assuming Adobe Launch and the query string parameter you use is ‘cid’, short for Campaign ID, you need to:
Pro tip: you could technically map the ‘cid’ query string parameter directly the Campaign variable like this without a data element 
, but I do not recommend it because with a data element you can re-use for any other marketing tech you are deploying through Launch.
To roll these campaign tracking codes up into Marketing Channels you need to take two more actions. This is another area where I see organizations struggle with, but if you follow the basics you will be fine. First, you configure the Paid Search Detection rule to look for ‘cid’ query string parameter. Second, you can create your marketing channels using Auto Setup (surprise! Adobe does help with some sort of pre-define setup, even if it is slightly hidden) and fill in with ‘cid’ for Email and Display. Outside of tailoring this process to your organization, this is all you need for tracking digital marketing channels.
The two steps above do not mean it is more difficult to track digital campaigns in Adobe Analytics, it means you must do it as part of a defined governance process. Which brings us to the last step in AA; to identify campaigns with friendly names.
As I keep mentioning, it is a very good thing to have a campaign tracking code governance process. Maintaining clean digital campaigns reports is not as easy as you might be led to believe. This is true for Adobe, Google, or any analytics tool you use. Mature organizations do this to ensure consistent campaign naming taxonomy across multiple internal teams, multiple channels, multiple tools, and multiple agencies (who are the ones that usually buy digital media ads and end up owning the vital step of tagging the destination links!).
The essential idea behind this process is creating a spreadsheet table that maps all campaign tracking codes in one column to friendly names in other columns that marketers can use to keep track of all their efforts, all while keeping values consistent and reduce human-error as much as possible. Then you import that table into your analytics solution so you can view digital campaigns by the friendly names instead of the obscure campaign codes. In Adobe, this import job is called uploading a Classification. You can also do it in Google Analytics, where it is aptly called Data Import. With this last step in Adobe Analytics, the simple data flow ends up looking something like this:
Don’t get me wrong, uploading data to an analytics solution is a common practice for many use cases. It is so vital for an analytics strategy that we have developed tech solutions for our clients that handle this automatically: Automated Adobe Classification API or AutomateGA (coming soon for Google Analytics). However, for campaign tracking it is especially beneficial, and it is – again – so vital there are niche technology vendors like our partner Accutics who have built great solutions with incredible team management features around this data governance need. DM me on LinkedIn, #measureSlack, or email me and we can get into it or make intros…
Putting this all together, whether it is UTM codes or a Tracking code, measuring digital marketing campaigns with Adobe Analytics or Google Analytics is all the same. Heck, we can even track all 5 UTM codes in Adobe Analytics if you want. Conversely, and more importantly, you can use a single Tracking Code in Google Analytics using the utm_id and import a table that maps codes to friendly names that show in Acquisition reports.
In my next post I will convince you why using utm_id is the best approach for Google Analytics, and why the process the same as using Tracking Code in Adobe Analytics. You will never want to use the usual UTM codes again. Instead, I hope you pick up a sword and join me in declaring war against UTMs!
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