{"id":9902,"date":"2022-02-04T20:02:49","date_gmt":"2022-02-04T20:02:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mailinvest.blog\/index.php\/2022\/02\/04\/google-analytics-email-tracking-twilio-sendgrid\/"},"modified":"2022-02-04T20:02:49","modified_gmt":"2022-02-04T20:02:49","slug":"google-analytics-email-tracking-twilio-sendgrid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mailinvest.blog\/index.php\/2022\/02\/04\/google-analytics-email-tracking-twilio-sendgrid\/","title":{"rendered":"Google Analytics Email Tracking | Twilio SendGrid"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Google Analytics<\/span><\/a> (GA) is a great free resource that helps you stay on top of your website\u2019s performance. But did you know that GA is also useful for monitoring your outbound emails? In this post, we\u2019ll show you how to use Google Analytics email tracking to gain statistical insight into your campaigns. Plus, if you\u2019re a Twilio SendGrid user, you\u2019ll learn how to use our REST API to simplify the process.<\/span><\/p>\n

How to track your email campaigns using Google Analytics<\/span><\/h2>\n

Tracking conversions from your email campaigns will help you understand how your emails perform and how to improve them. Follow these steps to learn how to generate a URL for an email campaign and track conversions in GA.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

1. Sign up and install Google Analytics<\/span><\/h3>\n

First, head over to GA to<\/span> sign up<\/span><\/a> and integrate the tracking code into your website as directed. To obtain the results described in this post, you\u2019ll need to<\/span> verify that you properly set up your GA account<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

2. Generate a URL to track inbound traffic from emails<\/span><\/h3>\n

With <\/span>Google Analytics 4<\/span><\/a>, the latest version of GA, you can track clicks on your email campaign by creating \u201cEvents,\u201d then marking them as \u201cConversion events.\u201d To do so, add query parameters to the end of your URL, then use GA to mark any page views with those query parameters as conversions. This helps you to distinguish between visitors who arrived at your site through an email campaign and visitors who arrived by some other means.<\/span><\/p>\n

For example, let\u2019s say you want to drive traffic to a specific page on your site: <\/span>https:\/\/www.example.com\/weekly-specials<\/span><\/code>. You can add query parameters of your choosing, such as <\/span>campaign_id<\/span><\/code>, and give the URL a distinct value for your email campaign. The resulting URL to use in your email might look like this:<\/span><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.example.com\/weekly-specials?campaign_id=winter-campaign-01<\/span><\/code><\/p>\n

3. Set up a conversion event for your email marketing campaign<\/span><\/h3>\n

To start tracking conversions, you need to set up a \u201cConversion event\u201d in GA. In the sidebar navigation, click on \u201cConfigure.\u201d Then go to the \u201cEvents\u201d page.<\/span><\/p>\n

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On the \u201cEvents\u201d page, click the \u201cCreate event\u201d<\/span> button.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Now give your event a name. For example, <\/span>winter_campaign_email_clicked<\/span><\/code>. Next, set the conditions that indicate this event has occurred. For our custom event example, we have 2 conditions:<\/span><\/p>\n

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  1. The <\/span>event_name<\/span><\/code> will be <\/span>page_view<\/span><\/code>.<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. The <\/span>page_location<\/span><\/code> (the referring link that brought the user to your site) will contain <\/span>campaign_id=winter-campaign-01<\/span><\/code> (our unique query parameter distinguishing our email campaign).<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Your custom event configuration will look like this:<\/span><\/p>\n

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    Click \u201cCreate.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

    Next, go to the \u201cConversions\u201d configuration page. Select \u201cNew conversion event.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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    In the \u201cNew event name\u201d field, enter the name of the custom event you just created. For our example, that\u2019s <\/span>winter_campaign_email_clicked<\/span><\/code>.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Click \u201cSave.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

    Now you can track each conversion from your email marketing campaigns in GA, giving you valuable insights into how your emails perform.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    4. Use the Twilio SendGrid API to send emails with custom URLs<\/span><\/h3>\n

    The <\/span>Twilio SendGrid REST API<\/span><\/a> allows you to build an email program customized to your business. To track your email campaign conversions with this API, you will use the custom URL generated in GA. Plus, you can take advantage of <\/span>several language SDKs<\/span><\/a> to easily integrate email with your projects.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    Let\u2019s take a look at how to send an email using Twilio SendGrid with the custom email campaign URL link embedded. First, you\u2019ll need to sign up for <\/span>a free account<\/span><\/a>. Shortly after you sign up, you\u2019ll receive a verification email that\u2019ll inform you when your account is active.<\/span><\/p>\n

    For our demonstration, we\u2019ll use Twilio SendGrid\u2019s <\/span>Node.js SDK<\/span><\/a>. To get started with the SDK, initialize a new Node.js project, then add the <\/span>@sendgrid\/mail<\/span><\/code> package:<\/span><\/p>\n

    ~\/project$ yarn init<\/span>
    ~\/project$ yarn add @sendgrid\/mail<\/span><\/code><\/p>\n

    Next, <\/span>download this <\/span>index.js<\/span> file<\/span><\/a>, copying it into your project folder. Because this is an example mail sending application that you run at the command line, you\u2019ll need to include a few environment variables when running the application:<\/span><\/p>\n