Google Analytics Showing mkt_tok and not utm Parameters from Email

[Daniel_Johanse1]

I put UTM parameters on my links in an email that went out recently, but Google Analytics is showing all the clicked-through URLs with the obfuscated /?mkt_tok parameter instead of the resulting UTM parameters. Any ideas how to fix this? Thanks!

[Jackie_Rodrigue]

Here is the way I resolved the issue of having all of our Marketo email stats falling under the Referral Channel in GA which is why I couldn't see my UTM Parameters.

You'll need a few things first from Marketo. Go to Marketo -> Admin -> Email. Copy your Branding Domain (email.yourcompany.com) and the Tracking Link (mkto-SetofNumbers.com).

Now go in to Google Analytics (must be GA Admin). Admin -> Channel Settings -> Channel Grouping -> Default Channel Grouping -> New Channel Grouping. (NOTE: I created an entirely new Channel Grouping for Marketo emails in order to keep it separate from other email traffic (ie. Constant Contact.) Under Channel Definitions, define your rules. Mine are as follows: Source - matches regex  - MarketoTrackingLink|BrandingDomain|marketo (I also added the word "marketo" so that it would all fall under the Marketo Email Channel). You can pick your display color and then hit Done.

Once that is complete, the most important thing to be done is reorder the newly created Marketo Email Channel by dragging it above the Referral Channel.

Hopefully, you should start seeing your Marketo traffic flowing into your newly created Channel instead of in Referral. If it's working properly, you will now be able to see your UTM parameters.

Good luck.

Drag "Marketo Email" Channel listed above "Email" and Referral" Channel.

MarketoTrackingLink|BrandingDomain|marketo

[Casey_Grimes]

Just a quick note here that this is only a surface-level masking of the problem by addressing the traffic on a channel level. If everything has been properly set up, the only reason you should your email tracking domain as a referral is if something is improperly marked up. With that said, it usually makes more sense to take your tracking domain and have it rewrite as your normal email source/medium and have campaign applied as "Not Available" or what have you.

Moreover, that all should be independent of UTM parameters, so I'm a little concerned that you haven't seen them before adding a channel group.

[Jackie_Rodrigue]

Hi Courtney, Thank you for your feedback but I'm not quite sure I follow. Before we created Marketo as it's own Channel, all Marketo traffic would fall under the Referral and none of our UTM parameters would be visible. Once we created the Marketo channel, all of our UTM parameters were visible.

[Mikes_Jones]

Bumping this discussion.

Anyone know how to properly add UTM parameters when sending emails so that it's picked up my Google Analytics?

[Michelle_Tresem]

Have you figured out how to do this? I'm trying to figure out how to track my emails campaigns as at least coming from medium=email to help segment my data.

[SanfordWhiteman]

There isn't any inherent problem adding UTM params to your links.  I'm sure the majority (though perhaps not > 75%) of Marketo users do this. 

However, if there is unusual technology somewhere else in the mix, then theoretically the mkt_tok-enizing of the link (which is critical for clickpath tracking) could create problems.  The vast majority of the time such problems are actually with your webserver trying to further rewrite or interpret links and not expecting the mkt_tok.  Another set of problems come from links using mailto:, tel: or other protocols.

Can you please post:

[1] an example of a link exactly as embedded in the email editor

[2] the resulting link in your browser's location bar after clicking the link in a (non-sample) sent email

[Lucas_Metherall]

Hi Sanford,

Wondering if  I can get some insight on this. We use Knak to design emails, then sync them to MKTO. In Knak, we append every link with a universal UTM code, eg;

utm_source=Marketo&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=tax appeal&utm_content=Prospect Conversion&id=G92A0620E02

 In the MKTO editor, it appears in the HTML view in the content block as:

<p style="margin: 0 0; mso-line-height-alt: 21px;"><strong><a href="https://www.worldanimalprotection.org.au/keepthemwild?utm_source=Marketo&amp;utm_medium=Email&amp;utm_campaign=tax appeal&amp;utm_content=Prospect Conversion&amp;id=G93A0620E02" target="_blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration: none; color: #ea6c11;"><span style="font-size: 15px;">Your kind gift today could help keep wild animals wild, give lives worth living to those who have been abused, and protect vulnerable animals around the world.</span></a></strong></p>
</div>

where the UTM codes are evident.

In the live sample email test, though, the link then appears in the search bar as:

https://donate.worldanimalprotection.org.au/campaigns/keep-them-wild/?id=G93A0620E02&mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiTVRZeVpUazFa

SO, questions - in the MKTO token, are the UTM values stored and readable for GA? Or, have they been wiped so that MKTO can operate it's own tracking? Will GA pick up anything from this?

Thanks,

Lucas

[SanfordWhiteman · Accepted solution]

This is all happening on your webserver.  It's 301 redirecting the initial URL to what appears to be your "canonical" (i.e. more authoritative) URL, but it only retains certain query params.

So the URL:

https://www.worldanimalprotection.org.au/keepthemwild?utm_source=Marketo&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=tax%20appeal&utm_content=Prospect%20Conversion&id=G93A0620E02&mkt_tok=anything

Gets redirected to:

https://donate.worldanimalprotection.org.au/campaigns/keep-them-wild/?id=G93A0620E02&mkt_tok=anything

Only keeping the id and mkt_tok params, as presumably they were configured to be retained (again note this config is on your server, www.worldanimalprotection.org.au,  Marketo's not in the picture at that point).

If you go straight to donate.worldanimalprotection.org.au:

https://donate.worldanimalprotection.org.au/campaigns/keep-them-wild/?id=G93A0620E02&utm_source=Marketo&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=tax%20appeal&utm_content=Prospect%20Conversion&id=G93A0620E02&mkt_tok=anything

Then the query params are all kept. So it's very much about the www.server.

[Lucas_Metherall]

Perfect! Works perfectly now, thank you for helping me out.

[SanfordWhiteman]

Happy to help.

[Michelle_Tresem]

I haven't tried manually adding the UTM parameters. I'm trying to avoid manually adding if at all possible. I just tried adjusting my default channel grouping in GA to see if I can tag that traffic as coming from medium=email. Will know in 24-48 hours if that worked. 

[SanfordWhiteman]

OK.  I'm not seeing what isn't working for you from a Marketo perspective.

You could treat mkt_tok=nnnn in the URL as utm_medium=email.

Alternately, you could check that the referrer matches your branding domain (click tracking domain), although I discourage relying on referrer esp. if you do not run HTTPS on your domain (Mkto landing domain or 3rd-party website).

[Anonymous]

The problem I'm having isn't with segmenting the traffic, but when I try to look at an aggregate view of unique pageviews for a particular set of pages. The way Marketo treats these links is very unhelpful here. We just moved away from Pardot where this wasn't a problem. For instance, when I sort by the top visited pages by unique pageviews, it doesn't accurately show me these anymore because the traffic that comes from a Marketo email is shown in different links due to the tracked URL. Yes, I could manually search for a part of a specific URL and aggregate the views myself, but I hope that's not the only method. Are there any other workarounds to this?

[Anonymous]

You may find it helpful to exclude the _mkto_tok query parameter from Google Analytics urls under "Admin -> View -> View Settings > Exclude URL Query Parameters (optional)." See Integrating Google Analytics with Marketo

After doing this, Google Analytics will ignore the _mkto_tok parameter and cease to count this traffic separately. I'm guessing it already does this by default for utm_source, utm_medium, etc.

[Michelle_Tresem]

Oooh, that's a great idea for treating the mkt_tok as medium=email. I'll certainly look into that. Thanks for the tip.

[Anonymous]

Were you able to get this to work Michelle? I'm having the same problem.

[SanfordWhiteman]

The _mkt_tok isn't really an obfuscation (you may be thinking of the tracking code http://branding.example.com/abcdef123).  It should be appended to your URL, not replace it.  When you click on the links in your email, what do you actually see in the browser's location bar? I can almost guarantee that URL doesn't include your UTM params, thus why GA doesn't pick them up.

[Daniel_Johanse1]

I may have been thinking of the tracking code when I said it was obfuscated, you're right. But as an example, in the Marketo email editor the link is http://www.maritzcx.com/five-cx-trends-shaping-the-b2b-landscape/?utm_source=marketing&utm_medium=em..., which changes to the tracking code when the email is actually sent, and then clicking through the email displays the full URL with the UTM parameters in the browser's address bar. However, the only results in Google Analytics for that page shows, as one example of many, www.maritzcx.com/five-cx-trends-shaping-the-b2b-landscape/?mkt_tok=long_string (but no UTM parameters).