Not Provided still causing headaches for Branded / Non Branded Keywords?

I've been thinking on ways to strip out branded from non-branded organic search terms in Analytics or IBM Digital Analytics since most of my keywords are 'Not Provided'

It's well documented that you can add the page URL to the keyword (NP - /portable-walrus-cleaner/product1) and make an educated guess on the keywords that drove the visit.

If a user has landed on your homepage - chances are they have used your brand to get there. But what happens when a user tries a brand search in Google and uses a sitelink?

 

Well - I could have the solution!

If you check out the refering URL from Google, you will find the redirect URL the search engine uses to provide data about what you clicked and where it is located on the SERPs

So what are we looking for?

The parameter you are looking for is a 'ved' and a value in the parameter 'QjB'

In other words - filter your refering URL for [*ved=*QjB*]

Any refering URL's featuring this parameter in the URL are more than likely branded searches, as they originate from a sitelink (however - if your site features sitelinks for categories, they will also show here!).

Just another way you can segment your branded / non-branded traffic!

Barry Kirley

Tracking PLA and Dynamic Remarketing AdWords for IBM Digital Analytics

You've created you Google merchants product feed...
You've created a Google Shopping campaign...
You've added the AdWords tracking tags on your site to track actions like 'Abandoned Baskets'...
You've created your Dynamic Remarketing Campaign to pull the products from your feed into your display ad..
Impressions are flying, Clicks are happening...

BUT

How on EARTH are you going to track these clicks in IBM Digital Analytics?

You could add the 'cm_mmc=' tag on the link URL in the feed. That's what I first though of doing, but hang on - that will also feed through to my PLA campaign and I want to track them independently!

Well - this is the scenario I've been working on today at Scotts of Stow in the UK Cotswolds. After contacting the AdWords team in California and Singapore it was decided by Google that this was not possible... Google - please read on...

I first though about adding an 'AdWords_Redirect' in the product feed with the custom tracking outlined on the AdWords help website...

URL?cm_mmc={ifpla:pla}{ifdyn:dyn}-_-Google-_-Product-_-Click

However - I wasn't getting much luck from this either in the PLA or the AdWords campaign.

Then I discovered [c:drlp:url] !

Add a field into your product feed and recreate your product URL under this tag...
URL?cm_mmc=YOUR-_-TRACKING-_-GOES-_-HERE

Give AdWords a bit of time to figure all this out and hey presto - you can now track your dynamic clicks and PLA clicks through IBM Digital Analytics (Core Metrics)

Now - back to my cake...