If you want to attribute an increase in sales and revenue to your SMS marketing efforts, then you need to know how to track SMS campaign performance using Google Analytics and UTM codes.
SMS marketing is a powerful tool for engaging with your audience and driving conversions. But to truly maximize the effectiveness of your SMS campaigns, it’s essential to track their performance and measure the results. Using UTM codes and Google Analytics, you can gain valuable insights into how your SMS campaigns perform and make adjustments as needed to improve their effectiveness.
This post will show you how to track SMS campaign using UTM codes and Google Analytics. We’ll also provide tips on monitoring your campaigns’ performance and analyzing the results to identify trends and patterns. With this information, you can fine-tune your SMS marketing strategy and maximize the return on investment (ROI) of your SMS campaigns. Let’s get started!
Why Tracking SMS Campaigns Matters
Tracking SMS campaigns is vital for a few reasons. First, it allows you to measure the effectiveness of your campaign and determine how many people are actually engaging with the messages you’re sending. This can help you identify any potential issues with your campaign and make adjustments as needed.
Second, tracking can help you understand your audience and their behavior, which can inform future campaigns and strategies.
Finally, tracking can help you comply with any regulations or laws related to SMS marketing, such as the CAN-SPAM Act in the United States. By tracking your SMS campaigns, you can ensure that you stay within the law’s boundaries and avoid any potential penalties.
What Are SMS UTM Codes
SMS UTM (Urchin Traffic Monitor) codes are a way to track the effectiveness of an SMS marketing campaign. You can use UTM codes to track SMS campaigns by adding a unique UTM code to each link in your SMS message.
When a recipient clicks on the link, the SMS UTM code will be added to the URL and recorded by your analytics tool. This will allow you to see how many people click on the links in your text messages and where they are coming from.
Marketers use UTM codes with analytics tools like Google Analytics to track the source, medium, and campaign name of traffic to a website.
This allows you to understand where your website traffic comes from and which campaigns generate the most engagement. UTM codes consist of five different parameters:
- the source,
- the medium,
- the campaign name,
- the content,
- the term.
By assigning unique values to each parameter, you can create a unique SMS UTM code for each campaign and track SMS campaign performance.
Step-By-Step Guide on How to Track SMS Campaign With UTM Codes and Google Analytics
To track SMS campaigns with UTM codes and Google Analytics, you’ll need to do the following:
- Create unique UTM codes for each SMS campaign you want to track. Each UTM code should include values for the source, medium, and campaign name parameters and can optionally include values for the content and term parameters.
- Add the UTM code to the end of the URL in each of your SMS messages. For example, if you have a link to your website in your SMS message, you would add the UTM code to the end of the URL like this:
“www.example.com?utm_source=sms&utm_medium=campaign&utm_campaign=summer-sale.” - Set up Google Analytics to track the UTM codes you’ve added to your SMS messages. You can do this by going to the “Acquisition” section of your Google Analytics account, selecting “Campaigns” from the left-hand menu, and then selecting “All Campaigns” from the sub-menu. This will show you a list of all the SMS campaigns you’re tracking using UTM codes.
- Monitor the performance of your SMS campaigns by checking the “Acquisition” reports in Google Analytics. These reports will show how many people are clicking on the links in your text messages and which SMS campaigns generate the most engagement.
By following these steps, you can track the performance of your SMS campaigns using UTM codes and Google Analytics. This will allow you to see which campaigns are working well and make adjustments as needed to improve the effectiveness of your SMS marketing.
SMS Marketing Metrics You Need to Track
There are several SMS metrics that are important to track, depending on your goals and SMS Marketing KPIs. Some of the most important metrics to consider include the following:
SMS Delivery rate: This metric shows the percentage of SMS messages successfully delivered to the recipients. A high delivery rate ensures that your SMS campaigns reach the right people.
SMS Open rate: This metric shows the percentage of SMS the recipients opened. A high open rate indicates that your messages are engaging and relevant to your audience.
SMS Click-through rate: This metric shows the percentage of SMS messages that resulted in a recipient clicking on a link or taking other desired action. A high click-through rate indicates that your messages effectively drive engagement and conversions.
SMS Opt-out rate: This metric shows the percentage of recipients who have opted out of receiving further SMS messages. A low opt-out rate indicates that your messages are not annoying or spammy to your audience.
Overall, the most important SMS metrics will vary depending on your goals and objectives for your SMS campaigns. It’s essential to track a range of metrics to get a complete picture of the effectiveness of your SMS campaigns.
How to Analyze the Performance of Your SMS Campaigns in Google Analytics
To analyze the results from UTM SMS codes, you’ll need to do the following:
Set up Google Analytics to track the UTM codes you’ve added to your SMS messages. Do this by:
- Go to the “Acquisition” section of your Google Analytics account.
- Select “Campaigns” from the left-hand menu.
- Click on “All Campaigns” from the sub-menu.
Additionally, you can access SMS UTM code data by clicking on the Acquisition tab in Google Analytics, then All traffic, and finally Source/Medium.
If you use GA4, the steps are similar. Go to the Reports tab in GA4, click on Acquisition Overview and change the Session parameter to Source/Medium.
You’ll immediately see how much traffic came to the website as a result of your SMS campaigns. In GA4, you can see the average engagement time per session, engagement rate, and event count. You can set up custom events to track SMS conversions if you haven’t already. We strongly advise you to do so! You’ll be able to attribute an increase of sales directly to your SMS marketing efforts.
Universal Google Analytics provides you with slightly different SMS campaign metrics, but the point is the same. You’ll see the average session duration and bounce rate, as well as how many people converted.
With all this data, you can easily calculate the SMS click-through rate by dividing the number of people you’ve sent the SMS campaign to with the number of people who came to the website by clicking on a link.
In a similar way, you can calculate the SMS conversion rate in Google Analytics by dividing the number of people you’ve sent the SMS campaign to by the number of people who converted on the website.
Once you’ve gathered all this data, calculate the SMS marketing ROI by comparing how much money you’ve spent on the SMS campaign with how much you’ve gained in terms of sales.
You may also notice certain trends, such as higher click-through rates on certain days of the week or even at certain times of the day.
Use the insights from your analysis to make adjustments to your SMS campaigns as needed. For example, if you notice that specific campaigns are not performing well, you can try changing the messaging or targeting of those campaigns to see if you can improve their performance.
By following these steps, you can effectively analyze the results of your SMS campaigns and make adjustments as needed to improve their performance.
Overall, the key to analyzing the performance of an SMS marketing campaign is to look at a variety of metrics and compare them to your goals and expectations. This can help you identify areas for improvement and optimize your future campaigns for better results.
Track SMS Campaigns in Google Analytics with Emitto
The good news is that you don’t need to use external tools to track SMS campaigns in Google Analytics. With Emitto’s URL shortener, you’ll be able to create UTM tags and implement them in your SMS campaigns in a blink of an eye.
Track SMS campaign performance in real-time across all channels and measure every important metric, such as conversion rate. Analyze the results you get and optimize your SMS campaigns to deliver great results over and over again.
You can also use your custom domain name when shortening links and check individual SMS campaign performance. This is also great for A/B testing, and you can combine this feature with audience segmentation to see how well each group of your customers responds to your SMS campaigns.
After you’ve run a couple of SMS campaigns, you can analyze all the data you’ve collected by accessing your SMS campaign history. You’ll know exactly what works, what doesn’t and how to improve. Create an SMS marketing report that will show everyone how effective your SMS marketing efforts are.
Want to make successful SMS campaigns? Here is your next read:
- Complete Guide to SMS Marketing for Agencies
- List of 15 SMS marketing tips to overperform in 2023
- Everything you need to know about increasing engagement with two way SMS marketing
Enjoy!
