Analyse marketing campaign reports

Once you have collected some campaign tracking data, it is time to put it to good use. The primary way to analyse Campaign Tracking data is on the Campaigns page found in the Acquisition section of the Main Navigation menu in Matomo.

Marketing Campaign Acquisition Reports and Alternative Visualisations

On the Campaigns page, you will see a table for each of the campaign parameters. By default, a simple table is shown, which summarises the number of visits from each traffic source. This is helpful for understanding which platforms and placements bring you the most traffic. However, there are alternative visualisations which provide even more data.

To access alternative visualisations, hover your mouse over the table until a green menu containing four icons appears below the table.

The first of these icons, the green cog icon , enables you to add a totals row to the table, or exclude values that haven’t received much traffic. The second icon changes depending on which visualisation is enabled (table icon by default). However, if you click on the active icon, several visualisations are available:

Simple table

The Simple Table visualisation is the one loaded by default. It shows you the number of visits associated with each campaign. You can also hover over the visit column to see the visit number as a percentage of all campaign traffic. This view is useful for understanding which of your campaigns bring you the most traffic, so you can focus on, and replicate the successful ones.

Table with Visitor engagement metrics

This next visualisation is represented by the table plus icon . It provides a more comprehensive overview of visitor engagement from your campaigns. You can explore metrics for each campaign, including: actions, actions per visit, average time on website, and bounce rate. This can help you build a picture of not only which campaigns brought the most traffic, but also how interested those visitors were.

You will generally be looking to increase actions per visit and time spent on site. On the flip side, you will typically want to see a low bounce rate if campaigns are reaching the right audience, as this tracks visits where somebody immediately leaves without taking any other actions.

Table with Goals metrics

This visualisation is represented by the goals table icon . It includes the following for each campaign value: an Ecommerce order conversion rate, a conversion rate for each goal you have configured, and revenue per visit. The Table with Goals metrics is useful for analysing the campaigns variations which are delivering people who complete goals and complete purchases on your website. This visualisation is especially helpful for checking your campaigns are bringing in the right traffic as well as volume.

Insights

The Insights visualisation provides an overview of your improving and declining campaigns. It displays the additional or reduced (not total) number of Visits, as well as the percentage that value has changed (Evolution) for each campaign within the chosen reporting period.

While campaigns will organically drive more or less traffic as you release and retire them, this can bring your attention to campaigns that are under or over-performing whilst active. This feature enables you to quickly identify new growth opportunities or campaigns that may be heading into trouble so you can adjust your marketing focus.

Vertical bar graph

Bar graphs provide a visual indication of your top-performing campaigns so you can see how they are performing against each other. This visualisation can be applied to visits, actions, conversions, and total revenue. To select which metric is shown, hover your mouse over the graph and click on the metrics icon to the top left of the graph to bring up a menu which allows you to pick alternative metrics.

Pie chart

With this visualisation, you can plot your campaigns as segments of a pie chart. This helps you identify campaigns that generate a larger proportion of your website engagement. By default, the Visits metric is shown but you can hover your mouse over the metrics icon at the top left of the pie chart to select alternative metrics. The metrics available within this visualisation include: actions, conversions, and total revenue.

Tag Cloud

This is a simplified visual reference for comparing a campaigns performance in relation to your other campaigns. The bigger and bolder a value is, the more visits it is associated with. This is great for sharing in external reports for people who aren’t used to reading charts. It is best used when there is a big gap between values because similar values will not display that differently in this view.

How to Filter Campaign Parameters within the Tag Cloud

If you want to look at a specific group of campaign tags in relation to each other, you can search for their common naming patterns. To do this, hover your mouse over the tag cloud area to load the green hover menu and then click the search icon to activate a search box. You can then type in the common campaign value you are looking for to bring up all tags containing this text. In the above example, you could use this to compare all campaigns containing app_help as part of their name.

Marketing Campaign Reporting for Goals with Matomo

Within the Goals section of Matomo, you can find campaign statistics broken down by each campaign parameter. On the Goals Overview page, scroll down until you see the Goals by Referrers section and you will see the links to each of the campaign tracking reports:

Click on the specific campaign parameter that you would like to analyse to load a table containing relevant goal data. The metrics that are available within these reports for each campaign parameter are:

• Visits attributed to each campaign value
• Number of Goals attributed to each campaign value
• Conversion rate of each goal from each campaign value
• Revenue from each goal from each campaign value
• Revenue per visit for each campaign value

Combined, these metrics should provide a good overview of how much each campaign variation is contributing to your site’s goals. You can easily see if certain campaigns are likely to attract users that complete a particular goal instead of another. Or, if there is a certain traffic source that does well across all of your metrics, it is probably worth further investment.

Marketing Campaign Reporting for Ecommerce with Matomo

To analyse your Ecommerce sales metrics in relation to your campaigns, visit the Ecommerce section of Matomo. Once there, click on the Sales sub-menu and look for the Sales by Referrers section where you will find reports for each campaign tracking parameter.

Click on the specific campaign parameter you would like to analyse, for example, Campaign Names, to load a table containing relevant ecommerce data. The metrics that are available within each of these reports are:

• Visits
• Ecommerce Orders Total Revenue
• Ecommerce Conversion Rate
• Purchased Products
• Revenue Per Visit

All of the above values are broken down for each campaign variation within the table. This allows you to see exactly how much revenue each campaign is generating for your site. If you are paying for individual campaigns, these figures can help you calculate your return on investment (ROI). Additionally, you can also compare the conversion rate and the number of products purchased by visitors from each campaign variable. These metrics can help you identify which campaigns are more likely to increase your sales volume with further investment.

Using Campaign Data to Improve Conversions

When optimising your campaigns, you should keep campaign feedback cycles in mind. For example, a social media post is likely to get the majority of its traffic within the first minutes and hours. In contrast, a tracking link behind a QR Code in a printed magazine will have a much longer lifecycle, and could generate visits for weeks or even months depending on its distribution.

Schedule a reasonable time in the future to come back and look at the reports described above whenever you publish a campaign tracking link. Once adequate time has passed, you can use your campaign data to tweak existing campaigns, and to help decide whether to repeat or delete specific campaigns. As a general rule of thumb, we recommend checking on your campaigns at the following intervals:

• Social Media Posts: One day later
• Email Newsletters: Three days to one week later
• Paid Display Campaigns: Weekly or Monthly
• Third Party Websites: Weekly or Monthly

You should have specific goals for each marketing campaign that you run. Make sure to check your Goals or Ecommerce metrics as well as your visits using the reports described above.

If you make significant changes to a campaign, you should generally update the campaign URL parameter values. However, if you keep them the same, you should make a note on the date of the change using the annotations feature within Matomo.