Most web site analytic tools and Google Analytics in particular present a pretty impressive picture on how your online marketing campaigns are performing. That is if you have implemented everything as it should be and if you have had the discipline of defining and using relevant campaign tracking code.

In a recent article Jonathan at Lunametrics discusses the use of "vanity URL's" as a good way of capturing online traffic generated by offline campaigns. In summary he advises using and promoting nice, short, easy-to-remember URLs like for example "www.grid14.com/radio" that allow you to track results based on the incoming URL used by your visitors.

The content that will appear after typing in the vanity URL are pages that actually live somewhere on your site — maybe just your homepage, or even better, a dedicated landing page for the promotion. That measn that our example URL www.grid14.com/radio is in reality referring to a specific landing page.

By using a 301 redirect on the landing page, you can even add Google Analytics campaign tracking code that will show up in your campaign reports, right alongside your online advertising.

We are currently implementing a similar strategy where we promote the client's .com web site address in all online communications and his .co.nz URL in all offline campaigns. Even though this is a pretty crude way of distinguishing between the two traffic generating initiatives, it gives us a reasonable insight in how people found their way to the web site.