How To Enable Automatic Google Analytics UTM Tracking in Salesforce Marketing Cloud
Marketing Cloud’s integration with Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is a powerful tool that enables you to track and analyze customer journey activities. Marketing Cloud automatically appends tracking data to every link in your emails, SMS messages, and journeys. This comprehensive overview will guide you through the integration, data sampling limitations, configuring web tracking, and the benefits of automatic tracking data.
Marketing Cloud Integration with Google Analytics 4 (GA4)
Marketing Cloud offers a seamless integration with GA4 that allows you to monitor and analyze customer journey activities. This integration brings Google’s native authentication into play, ensuring a secure link between your Marketing Cloud instance and your Google Analytics account.
Marketing Cloud simplifies tracking by automatically appending tracking data to all links in your emails, SMS messages, and journeys. This data empowers you with insights into customer behavior, making it invaluable for decision-making.
To use this integration, your Marketing Cloud account must have the Google Analytics Audiences SKU, and you should possess at least a Marketing Cloud Enterprise 2.0 account. Detailed requirements and inquiries can be directed to your Salesforce account representative.
This integration fully supports Google Analytics properties created with the GA4 platform, whether using the free version or the paid Google Analytics 360 enterprise version. It connects at an enterprise level, and you can manage the integration from your Google Analytics account.
When you activate a Google Analytics audience, Marketing Cloud generates a persistent user ID for each subscriber in both Marketing Cloud and Google Analytics. This user ID enables data collection on customer behaviors and the creation of Google Analytics audiences for use in Journey Builder. The Journey Analytics dashboard with the Google Analytics 4 integration provides insights into journey performance against your predefined goals, email and site metrics, and more. Customize your dashboard to display the metrics most important to you.
Configuring the Google Analytics Integration for Marketing Cloud
Before you dive into the integration, there are a few steps to follow. This article assumes that you’ve already configured GA4 and your site is sending data.
TIP: I’d highly recommend creating both a Marketing Cloud user and a Google Analytics user that aren’t tied to an actual employee within your organization. Too many times, we’ve watched integrations break when an employee is removed from an account. If you’re concerned with adding users, a generic integration@yourcompany.com could work across all of your integrations. If you don’t mind creating additional users, having ga4@yourcompany.com can provide an extra layer of security and clarification.
- Ensure the user account you’re integrating has admin permissions for both Marketing Cloud and your Google Analytics account and property.
- To receive conversion data, enable e-commerce in your Google Analytics account (available in the paid Google Analytics 360 account).
Set up Google Analytics tracking for both web and mobile app metrics in the Journey Analytics dashboard to understand how mobile app conversions impact web behavior.
How to Configure Automatic Tracking Data
- Log in to Marketing Cloud with administrative permissions.
- Navigate to Setup.
- Navigate to Platform Tools > Apps > Google Analytics Integration.
- Click Link Account and follow the instructions.
While you can enable or disable tracking parameters, the detailed configuration is no longer editable when configuring your email as it was in previous Google Analytics integrations. Contact your Salesforce account representative or the team responsible for your Marketing Cloud account if you’re looking for any customization of the tracking paremeters.
By configuring these features, you can harness the power of data to enhance your marketing strategies and drive success in the digital landscape. If your company needs implementation or integration assistance with Salesforce Marketing Cloud (or other Salesforce-related services), we can assist.
