How to track visitors from mobile ads

Google Analytics has just added a new feature that makes tracking clicks from mobile ads a whole lot easier.

If enabled, Google analytics can automatically tag all AdWords clicks with a unique URL the helps it identify that traffic source. However, in some cases it’s not possible to link an AdWords account with an Analytics account. And in other cases, you might want to track clicks from mobile ads on other networks.

So how do you go about identifying and segmenting mobile clicks?

The answer lies in a new tracking parameter called Mobile ValueTrack. This automatically ads a tag to the destination URL, allowing Google Analytics to identify it as a mobile click. To use the feature, just add the Mobile ValueTrack parameter: {ifmobile:NewTagName} into the “Destination URL” field  when you’re putting together your mobile text ad.

Redirecting traffic to a mobile optimised site

The first, huge benefit of the mobile ValueTrack parameter, is that it allows you to identify clicks from mobiles, and to redirect them to a mobile optimised version of your website.

Let’s say you wanted all clicks from mobile devices for your website www.travelingdog.net to be redirected to www.travelingdog,net/mobile. All you’d need to do is add the mobile ValueTrack parameter {ifmobile:mobile}.

Here’s what it would look like in AdWords:

Tracking using third party tags

If – like Barracuda Digital – you’re often using third party tracking tags, you can still use Mobile ValueTrack to track your mobile clicks. All you need to do is insert the tag into the destination URL.

In the example of travellingdog.net above, you just need to add the Mobile ValueTrack parameter into the landing page URL so it looks like this:

www.travelingdog.net?type={ifmobile:mobclick}

In this example, the tag “mobclick” gets inserted into the URL, which lets you identify those clicks from mobiles.

If you need help tacking clicks from mobile devices for your PPC or Mobile campaign, get in touch.