You can use link grouping to group various links from your campaigns together.
If you use external dynamic content blocks in your campaigns and they contain links, then link grouping is the only way to be able to track them without your account having Google Analytics configured.
Link grouping
Link grouping is the ability to assign a tag to an individual link in a campaign.
The tagged link then comes under the umbrella of that link group name for reporting and segmentation purposes. An individual link can have multiple link groups assigned to it.
Reporting makes use of link groups by allowing you to filter on them, whilst you can segment on clicks across all of your campaigns based on link groups.
Assign link groups
You can group links in your campaign to track engagement more effectively. Link groups help you organise related links under shared labels, such as product categories or campaign themes.
To assign link groups:
Insert or edit a link in your campaign.
In the Add a link popup, find the Link groups field.
Type the name of the group you want to assign. You can add multiple groups by separating them with commas.
Select INSERT.
To learn more, see insert links to a campaign.
For example, if your campaign includes links to offers for Cairo, Luxor, and Alexandria, you could assign the link groups Egypt and Africa to each of them. This lets you track how well regional offers perform across your audience.
If you're assigning a link group that you've already created and used previously, the autocomplete function will help to speed things up.
Assigning link groups to an external dynamic content block works in the same way. When configuring the block's settings, enter link group names into the 'Link groups' field. These will then be assigned to all links within that external dynamic content block.
Reporting
You can find you link click reporting by selecting a campaign under Analytics > Reports. The link group report is in the Interaction area of an email campaign report.
You can also filter in the same way in the Unique clickers report.
Providing link groups have been assigned, clicks for links contained within a campaign's external dynamic content are also be included in reporting.
Segment on Clicks
You can segment on link group clicks, as opposed to just individual and specified link clicks.
Again, providing link groups have been assigned, segmentation will also include clicks for links within external dynamic content blocks.
To help understand the advantage of link grouping when it comes to segmentation, we'll consider a scenario in which it could be used by a business such as a travel agent.
Let's imagine they're looking to make the most of their current value deals on holidays to Egypt. Therefore they could segment on contacts who've clicked at least 10 times in the last 90 days on links that are part of the Egypt link group.
The travel agent can be pretty sure these are good prospects, given their recurring interest in destinations within the country. In order to capitalise on this, they could then enrol the contacts via the segment into a program designed to exclusively promote deals to Egypt. If they’ve attached ‘Africa’ to appropriate links too, then they could make an even wider program to include contacts interested in holidaying in that particular continent.