Google Acquisition & Audience Segmentation

[AmandaValle.Digital]

Hi.

I'm trying to figure out a solution to two questions one of my current clients has asked me in regards to Google Analytics tagging, and I'm unsure how to respond. Can anyone help? See below the questions,

1. In Google Acquisition > Overview, their paid media is reporting as "Other". They do not run any Google paid ads. They only run Facebook paid ads. Is there a way to update the source so that it says "Paid" versus "Other" within the default channel?

The current solution was advised to create a channel group that the client has to then tick on overtime they want to see this data with the correct labeling. They would prefer to see it in the default.

Is it just a matter of going into the *default channel, choosing the "Paid" option, and then specifying the source/medium that contains Facebook, CPC, or referral to be categorized under this channel? Or is it something else?

*Aware that changes to the Default Channel are permanent changes and will change how new traffic is classified.

2. Audience segmentation > The client wants to be able to define it's audience by shopping intent and informational intent. Is there a clear way to do this, for example, by keywords used, e.g. buy, product name, entry (shopping intent), versus e.g. non-purchase intent, entry to the blog, length of time on site (info intent). Would be happy to have a conversation about the last question, since I'm conscious that there are probably multiple ways to define this - thanks.

To the group, thank you for readying my questions and helping me with these solutions - your time is appreciated and valued.

Sincerely,

Amanda

[StephanSolomonidis]

To your first question, have you looked at adding utm_ parameters to your ad URLs? You might be familiar with utm_ parameters from AdWords. They can work in exactly the same way for Facebook ads (but of course note that auto-tagging doesn't work for Facebook, so there's a little more work involved).

For example, if I was advertising the Moz.com home page in my Facebook ad, I'd change the ad URL from https://www.moz.com to:

https://www.moz.com?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=summer_sale&utm_content=ad_variant_1

You can use Google's URL builder to get an idea of this, but if you need to add lots of these across a large Facebook campaign, you'll be better off with Facebook's Power Editor. As long as you set the utm_medium to 'cpc', as I have above, Google Analytics can start to record these as paid traffic, rather than "Other".