If you’re running marketing campaigns across email, social, paid ads, and who-knows-where else, you already know one thing: keeping tabs on what’s working is a headache. Sharefable can help you pull the mess together, but only if you set things up right. This guide is for people who want real answers—not another vague promise about “unified dashboards.”
Whether you’re new to Sharefable or you’ve been poking around for a while, here’s how to track multichannel campaigns without getting lost in the weeds.
1. Get Your Channels and Sources Straight
Let’s start with the obvious: you can’t compare apples and oranges if you’re not even sure what fruit you’ve got. Make a simple list of every channel you plan to track. Don’t overthink it—just write down:
- Paid social (Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc.)
- Organic social
- Google Ads or other PPC
- Direct traffic (people typing your URL)
- Referral traffic (blog posts, partners)
- Anything else you care about
Pro tip: Don’t let “channel” and “source” get blurry. In Sharefable, a channel is broad (like social), and a source is specific (like Facebook Ads). Keep them separate in your tracking.
2. Set Up Consistent Naming Conventions
The fastest way to wreck your data is by letting every team or agency name things their own way. In Sharefable, the power is in the naming. Pick set names for campaigns, channels, and sources before you launch a thing.
Keep it simple:
- Use lowercase and dashes or underscores (e.g., spring-sale-2024).
- Decide if you’ll go by campaign theme, date, or both.
- Enforce the rules. Seriously. If your team can’t follow naming conventions, you’ll spend more time cleaning up than measuring results.
What NOT to do:
Don’t get fancy with emojis, random abbreviations, or inside jokes. You’ll regret it in three months.
3. Use Sharefable’s UTM Builder—And Actually Use It
Sharefable comes with a built-in UTM builder. If you’re tempted to create links by hand, don’t. Typos and inconsistencies are the enemy. Stick with the tool so every link you send out is tagged properly.
How to do it:
- Pick your campaign name (e.g., product-launch-q3).
- Choose your channel and source from your agreed list.
- Add extra parameters only if you’ll actually use them later.
Ignore:
Custom parameters you never plan on filtering by. It just clutters your data.
4. Map Out Your Conversion Events (Before You Launch)
Tracking clicks is fine, but what matters is what happens next. In Sharefable, you’ll want to set up conversion events that matter—like signups, purchases, or downloads.
Best practices: - Define 1–3 real conversions per campaign. More than that, and you’ll drown in noise. - Make sure Sharefable is actually tracking these events on your site or app. (Yes, this means checking your tracking scripts.) - Test each event before launch. Don’t assume it “should just work.”
What to watch out for:
If you’re using third-party checkout or landing pages (like Shopify, Eventbrite), double-check that Sharefable can track those events end-to-end. Sometimes, you’ll need to fiddle with integrations.
5. Build Your Dashboards for Action, Not Decoration
It’s easy to create a Sharefable dashboard full of pretty charts. But if you can’t answer “What channel is driving actual results?” in under a minute, it’s not doing its job.
Good dashboards: - Show you the basics—sessions, conversions, cost per result—side by side for every channel. - Highlight your top campaign and your worst one. - Let you filter by date, channel, or campaign without a five-minute loading time.
Skip:
Widgets you never look at, or vanity metrics (like “total impressions” if you only care about sales).
6. Keep Reporting Cadence Realistic
Should you check results every day? No. You’ll drive yourself nuts, and the data will be too noisy. Set a schedule that matches your campaign cycles:
- Daily: Only if you’re running big-budget, high-velocity campaigns (think e-commerce sales, not B2B lead gen).
- Weekly: For most teams, a weekly review is plenty.
- Campaign wrap-up: Always do a post-mortem after a campaign ends. Save a snapshot of the data in Sharefable so you can compare next time.
Pro tip:
Don’t change tactics based on micro-fluctuations. Wait for meaningful trends.
7. Watch for Attribution Pitfalls
Sharefable tries to make attribution easy, but here’s the truth: no tool is perfect. Last-touch, first-touch, linear—it all has tradeoffs. Pick one model and stick with it for each analysis. Consistency matters more than chasing “perfect” attribution.
What works: - Use last-touch for short, direct campaigns (e.g., flash sales). - Use first-touch for long B2B sales cycles where the first impression matters.
Ignore:
Anyone promising “100% accurate” attribution across channels. It doesn’t exist.
8. Integrate with Other Tools (But Only When It’s Worth It)
Sharefable can pull in data from ad platforms, email tools, and CRMs. But just because you can integrate everything doesn’t mean you should.
When to integrate: - If you’re tired of copy-pasting results into spreadsheets. - If you need to match ad spend with revenue in one place. - If your sales team lives in the CRM and you want to tie marketing to closed deals.
When to skip: - If it takes more time to set up than it saves. - If your data lives in a tool you barely use.
Start small—connect only your main ad account or email tool first. Make sure the data looks right before adding more.
9. Run Sanity Checks Regularly
Every so often, you’ll see numbers in Sharefable that just don’t make sense. Maybe a campaign shows zero clicks, or a channel suddenly spikes. Don’t assume the tool is always right.
How to double-check: - Compare Sharefable data with native platform reports (Facebook Ads Manager, Google Analytics, etc.). - If you see a big mismatch, check your UTM tags, event setup, and integrations. - Don’t be shy about pausing a campaign to investigate. Better to fix it early than explain bad data later.
10. Focus on What You’ll Act On
You could track everything, but you shouldn’t. Pick a handful of metrics you’ll actually use to make decisions—like cost per conversion, ROAS, or lead quality. Ignore the rest.
Remember:
The point of tracking is to improve results, not to win a screenshot contest.
Wrapping Up: Keep It Simple, Review Often
Multichannel campaign tracking in Sharefable can be powerful, but only if you keep your setup clean and your goals clear. Don’t let dashboards and integrations distract you from what matters: knowing what works, what doesn’t, and what to try next.
Start with the basics, review your setup every quarter, and don’t be afraid to cut what isn’t useful. You’ll save time, dodge headaches, and—most importantly—know how your campaigns are really doing.