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How to track clicks of ads in email using google analytics?

How do I track display banner ad impressions with Google Analytics?

  • I run many banner ad campaigns to drive traffic to my site outside of Google. I do not use DFA. I know I can track clicks from these ads, but how can I track impressions for these ads using GA?

  • Answer:

    You can't track, but you can report it! It sounds weird, but let me explain. 1) Tracking Impressions using GA isn't possible by design. To track banner ad impression you need a URL redirection which sends the data to GA and after that load the ad creative in order to display the banner. It is exactly what AdServers like DFA do. You can use DFA, Mediamind, Realmedia, OpenX, Adlayer, or any other. BUT, there's a workaround if you REALLY want to track that anyway in GA: Measurement Protocol. You can write a PHP/Python/Ruby program which sends the impression data to GA using https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/protocol/v1/ and after that, redirects to the creative. Take a look at an example of an email impression tracking solution here: http://www.lunametrics.com/blog/2013/06/17/email-tracking-google-analytics Although GA wasn't designed for that, some people (including me) loves GA Hacks to measure anything and they can do that using this method. 2) Even if you can't track impressions natively in GA, you can use a adserver or any other solution and so, upload the adserver data to your campaign reports in GA using https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/platform/cost-data-import. IMHO, It's the best option. You use the right tool for the right thing and tie their data together using a robust API or Interface. I hope it helps you!

Leonardo Naressi at Quora Visit the source

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Tracking no. Of impressions of a Display banner is similar to, how we track page views of a webpage, but for this we call 'TrackEvent' instead 'TrackPageview'. You could use the below mentioned code snippet. Create an event like this -     pageTracker._trackEvent("Banner", "<Banner name or ID>", "click") Through this you could easily track the total no. Of impressions and total no. of clicks on the display banner. I hope this information is sufficient and will be helpful to you.

Satinder Jeet Singh

Offsite DFA data (presuming you're using this platform) can only show in the reports if integrated. Integration is only available at Google Premium level. Therefore to see impressions you must first be using Premium and them link the accounts. Without this, the way to capture data is using the GA parameters through URL builder, but this will only give you clicks.

Rachel Sweeney

we've been using Piwik which is an open source alternative to google analytics that you need to install on your own server  to track any content, and its pretty useful to show real time tracking for pages and content interaction.

Yassin Zaynoun

Suleman Sohail

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