Figuring out which marketing channels actually produce customers

Google Analytics provides a way to tag traffic using things called UTM codes.

(UTM means Urchin Tracking Module. Urchin was the analytics system Google acquired and turned into Google Analytics. But you don't need to know that to use them).

UTM codes are mostly used with advertising so ad systems can tell you which ad, ad keyword, and ad campaign brought traffic to your Shopify store and how that traffic behaved once it got there. e.g. bounced in 5 seconds VS converted and bought a bunch of product.

You can use UTM codes in any link though, not just in ads.

I use them with regularly with my email links. They help me know which emails result in the behavior I want.

But I rarely have the time to go in that much depth.

Instead what I like to do is look at my traffic as a whole and figure out what's working conversion-wise.

I did that last week and had some expected results along with something surprising.

JSON-LD for SEO received a lot of purchases from the Shopify App Store traffic and Google SEO in-general. Which is what I expect for a common problem with Shopify stores (SEO) and a high ranking in the Shopify App Store and Google.

But it didn't get many from my email newsletter even though I was writing about it about half the time.

With Repeat Customer Insights SEO was still a large portion (expected) but my email newsletter was the source of nearly half of all purchases. The Shopify App Store was way down near the bottom past Google SEO and even referral traffic.

This tells me that my time and resources are best spent on my email newsletter for Repeat Customer Insights customers and the Shopify App Store for JSON-LD for SEO. Both would also benefit from Google SEO which is one of my secondary channels.

It doesn't make sense to be optimizing my App Store page for Repeat Customer Insights or use my email newsletter for JSON-LD for SEO. There's just not enough conversions for them to payback the effort.

If you start setting up UTM codes and really tracking your products you can do quite a bit more analysis than I can with just two products.

It's common to find some products sell well with some traffic channels while they bomb with others. Knowing that could save you marketing resources at the same time as you increase profit.

Make sure you're using Google Analytics or another system.

Make sure you're adding UTM or tracking urls where you can.

And make sure you regularly review the results.

If you want to go beyond the first sale, Repeat Customer Insights has a product analysis that will show you how much each product and variant in your store produces on an LTV basis. That way you know customers who start by buying Product X have a higher chance to come back and buy again and again.

Connecting solid traffic source to a solid product that creates repeat customers can be a real cash cow. But only if you measure it.

Eric Davis