Tracking Newsletter Subscribers, Affiliate Links, Downloads, and Outbound Links With Google Analytics

Here is an excellent article I found written by Chris Casarez on how to track any outbound link using Google Analytics. This is perfect for tracking newsletter sign-ups, affiliate links, product downloads, or any other outbound link.

http://www.seoracle.com/google-analytics-how-to-tutorial/track-outbound-links-and-file-downloads-with-google-analytics

You can get similar information from Google Support at the link below, but they don't go into detail about how to setup a duplicate profile and filter these outbound links so your page views in your primary profile aren't skewed. Chris shows how to setup this feature using the new Analytics code. The link below will show you how to setup this tracking feature whether you are using the old Urchin code or the new code. However, I'm not sure why anyone would still be using the old code?

http://www.google.com/support/googleanalytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=55527

One thing I do disagree with Chris on is the need to move the Google Analytics code above the outbound links. I've been tracking outbound links for more than a year using this method, and I still have my GA code at the bottom of my page. My outbound links are tracking just fine. This is also not mentioned as a requirement on the Google Support page above.

Thanks for the great information Chris. I'm off to setup my duplicate profile and filtering.

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Tags: google-analytics, track newsletter subscribers

Posted by: Brent Crouch on 31 Dec, 20093 Comments »

3 Responses to “Tracking Newsletter Subscribers, Affiliate Links, Downloads, and Outbound Links With Google Analytics”

January 3rd, 2010 at 5:04 pm
Chris Says:

Hi Brent, thanks for the mention and link! You’re right, placing the tracking code at the top of the page appears to have been unnecessary. Google’s guidelines stated that this was necessary in order for eventtracking to run, but when I mentioned this to our developers for implementation, they didn’t see why/how it was necessary to do so, and indeed it turned out to be unnecessary.
January 3rd, 2010 at 6:27 pm
Brent Crouch Says:

I wasn’t sure if maybe you posted that because it was required in certain circumstances. I knew it wasn’t required in my setup, but beyond that, I wasn’t sure. Thanks for stopping by and confirming that and providing some very good info on your blog.
April 25th, 2011 at 11:29 pm
seo company canada Says:

Here one of the way to protect your affiliate links and your commissions:
Scripts and software tracking:
You can also use software as well as various scripts to track the click-throughs from customers. This software will never display the affiliate links directly and instead show the link to the tracking software that has been installed on the affiliate’s – marketer’s website.