How to Track Your Social Media ROI in Google Analytics

E-Commerce retailers using Google Analytics to track their metrics can now also track their social media ROI as well. I’m going to explain how in five easy steps.

Step 1. Locate and select Advanced Segments from the lower left sidebar in your Google Analytics Dashboard.

Step 2. Once in the Advanced Segment screen, select Create a new custom segment

Step 3. Move Source into the Dimension or Metric Window

Step 4. Select “Matches Regular Expression” from the Conditions Box. In the Value Box, plug in the social networking sites your website is on using this string:

digg|aim|friendfeed|blinklist|fark|furl|wikipedia|stumbleupon|netvibes|bloglines|linkedin|facebook|del\.icio\.us|
feedburner|twitter|technorati|faves\.com|newsgator|PRweb|msplinks|myspace|bit\.ly|tr\.im|cli\.gs|zi\.ma|poprl|tinyurl

Do not include websites or networks you are not a part of. You’ll also want to be sure you do not leave any spaces between the social network and the Pipe stroke  <|> (the symbol above the backslash on most keyboards). In instances where there is typically a period or dot in the URL, you’ll need to insert a backslash the first and second elements of the URL.

Step 5. Name your Custom Report and test it. You will now be able to see where you are receiving the most social media traffic from as well as your bounce rate, keywords used and any other metrics you decide to track.