How to do web tracking

One of the most important analysis and reporting operations to make a difference in increasingly saturated markets: we're talking about web tracking.

Web tracking is nothing more than the monitoring of user behavior within a website.

Today we will better understand how to track these behaviors and how to leverage them to create effective and scalable social media and Google campaigns, as well as profiling your target audience.

To track users, there are really many tools available.

Among the most important we find:

• Cookies;
• The Facebook Pixel;
• The Google Analytics tracking code

Privacy rules are becoming stricter, especially after the full or partial implementation of the new GDPR regulations, and users are more informed and, in theory, protected.

Marketers now, however, without particular difficulty, manage to know the interests of users in an extremely precise manner by profiling them and offering them highly targeted advertising.

The first way to track a user and their online operations is through cookies.

Cookies: between privacy and tracking

Cookies are small files that are installed on the browser (Chrome, Firefox, Edge..) of a website visitor and allow marketers to track many operations performed by the user within the site.

They are often at the center of controversy because many believe they are responsible for users' lack of privacy.

It's not exactly like that, as there are indeed different types of cookies:

Classic cookies and Third-party cookies.

• The classic cookies, defined as main and necessary, are not a problem for user privacy and are actually useful for saving preferences that you usually set on a site such as the language with which you consult the pages.

Third-party cookies, on the other hand, are those that allow marketers to track user behavior by interfacing these data with the databases of major social networks and Google Analytics.

Other forms of web tracking: ip, web beacons, and digital fingerprints

• Each device is assigned a so-called IP (Internet Protocol address) which is useful for communication between various devices. Thanks to the presence of the IP, many software programs and private companies track user operations such as their geolocation just to give an example.

• Web beacons, or pixel tags, or simply tracking tags, are javascript codes that allow for tracking user behaviors in a very detailed manner. An example of this is the tracking pixel found in emails, which is extremely useful for verifying the effectiveness of newsletter campaigns.
• Fingerprinting allows for the collection of information about your browser, network, or device and combining them to create a set of characteristics that is mostly uniquely identifiable to you.

Now let's go into more detail by analyzing some forms of web tracking and understanding how to use them.

A classic form of web tracking is undoubtedly that of Google Analytics 

Google analytics tracking code: how to use it

Analytics is by its nature one of the most comprehensive forms of web tracking.

By inserting the tracking code, every action on the user's site is saved and archived ready to be reused for statistics or for Google ADS campaigns.

To install the Google Analytics tracking code, all you need to do is log in with your Google account and go to the dedicated site.

After creating a property on Google Analytics, you will be given a code that you can insert into the head of your website. Modern CMS or more advanced platforms (like Framework360), allow for the simplified code to be directly inserted into specific sections without having to fuss over the technical part.

The more experienced marketers are also able to create custom events such as tracking a particular user behavior, like a specific click on a button or on a part of the site.

Facebook pixel: how to use it effectively

The Facebook pixel works in a similar way to the Analytics tracking code.

To install the Facebook pixel on your website, you must have a Business Manager account.

Once you manage a Facebook page, you can access the advertiser functions from this link.

Properly tracking the behavior of your site's visitors (after GDPR consent), allows advertising platforms' machine learning to optimize your campaigns and bring you visitors increasingly similar to those who have already made a conversion on your website or landing page.

The revolution of web tracking: Framework360's web tracking

If you do not have programming skills and wish to perform effective web tracking easily, Framework360 is the right solution.

Framework360 is the first complete digital marketing platform, which will help you create and manage, through numerous but intuitive screens and windows, many marketing tools to sell your product/service.

Within its control panel will be a web tracking module that will allow the insertion of the pixel (the code ID provided by the business manager) and the Analytics monitoring code ID that enables interfacing with Google's powerful tool.

In addition to these two tracking tools, it is also possible to include:

• Microsoft Tag
• LinkedIn Insight;
• Tag Yandex Metrica;
• Albacross;
• Google Ads;
• Google Tag Manager

And many others...

In similar ways, it will be possible to track user behavior in a revolutionary way without having to touch the code and by simply choosing visual settings, then the system will interface with the monitoring code and adjust it to your goals.

Among the many configurable settings, it will be possible to track in a simplified manner:

• The calls (or presumed such) that the user will attempt to make from the site by clicking on the number;
• Emails sent from the site;
• The scrolling of the page, that is how many and which users scroll through a given percentage of the selected page;

Cart abandonment and checkout views or the viewing of a specific product in case of e-commerce;

Tracking of every single link on the site;

The duration of page views;

Requesting information via the form

Purchasing your products

In short, through the goals of the web tracking module, it will be truly possible to manage all events in a personalized way that are usually complex to set up.

Obviously, Framework360 is GDPR compliant.

After comfortably registering at the following  link and thus creating your environment, you will be ready to start.

In conclusion, web tracking is an invaluable resource for marketers, as it provides extremely useful data for interacting with their target in a targeted and modern way.