kontextURLs

User Guide
Discovering The New Customer Journey
with Smart URLs

Data-Driven Insights, Monitoring and Reporting for Content, SEO, and Influencer Marketing
kontextURLs User Guide
Table of Content
1.kontextURLs User Guide 2
1.2 What are kontextURLs? 3
1.3 Deeper Metrics for Meaningful Data 4
2. Where do I start? 5
2.1 Define Your Reporting Framework 5
2.2 Configure Your Content Tags 6
2.2.1 Content Tags 6
2.2.2 Taxonomy (Optional) 7
2.2.3 Configure Your Campaign/Content Engagement Dashboard 8
2.3 Create and Distribute Your kontextURLs 9
2.3.1 How to Create a Single kontextURL 10
2.3.2 How to Create Multiple kontextURLs 12
2.4 Monitor Your Content (What Do I Do?) 16
2.4.1 How is a single kontextURL performing? 17
2.4.2 How is my campaign (multiple kontextURLs) performing? 17
2.5 How Do I Generate Reports on my kontextURLs? 18
2.5.1 kontextURL Tag Report 18
2.5.2 kontextURL Engagement Report 18
2.5.3 Advanced kontextURL Engagement Report 20
2.5.4 API Access 20
3. Advanced System Settings & Features 21
3.1 More on Data Beacons and Custom Dashboards 21
3.2 Filtering out Bots 24
4. What is a Conversion Path? 25
4.1 Reporting on content ROI 25
4.2 Conversion Path Visualization 26
4.3 Decisions you can make with conversion path analytics 27
5. Lead Scoring Integration 28
6. Using kontextURLs with Paid Campaigns 30
7. Advanced kontextURL Features 31
7.1 Google Analytics Integration 31
7.2 Using kontextURLs for Dynamic Content and A/B Testing 32
7.3 Pass Dynamic Cookie Information 32
Glossary 33

1.
1. kontextURLs User Guide
Every performance-driven marketer seeks to answer these questions:
What is working?
What is not working?
How do I prove it?

kontextURLs technology helps marketers answer these questions across paid, owned and earned
for both on-site and off-site digital campaigns.

As a marketer, you are most likely using content on your website and tracking its engagement
using embedded analytics such as Google Analytics. However, tracking the content living outside
of your website, including off-site and offline, can be a more difficult proposition. How do you
track the true engagement (clicks) from links within social posts or those which have been
shared multiple times? How do you distinguish which types of content (i.e., blog posts, videos,
infographics, ads) are the top or bottom performers? If you are starting to use influencers to reach
your target audience, how do you measure their effectiveness, if you do not have access to their
websites or analytics accounts?

Using kontextURLs will provide in-depth insights into engagement with this and any of your off-site
content, such as what content is working best, where and with whom. kontextURLs provide unique
user engagement metrics versus the broad brush social metrics of likes, shares and follows.

Why is this important?

Up to 90% of the customer journey
happens off your website

2.
1.2 What are kontextURLs?
kontextURLs are an enterprise-ready smartURL system. They are shortened URLs with cookies
and infinite Content Tags to track and report on the engagement (clicks) of off-site and on-site
content. These short URLs, which can be white-labeled, are associated with and redirect visitors to
a Destination URL (piece of content).

Example:
Short URL - gshift.it/kontextURL redirects to
Destination URL - http://www.gshiftlabs.com/web-presence-analytics/software/kontextURLs/

Many brands use content on their websites and track it using embedded analytics (i.e., Google
Analytics); however, tracking content
performance and engagement occurring gTip
outside of your website can be more kontextURLs can be used to track any content,
difficult. anywhere - i.e., on your website, off your
website, paid ads, links in social posts, offline
The true power of kontextURLs lies in (billboards, ads), etc.
Content Tags and the ability for marketers
to assign attributes to off-site or on-site
links, which they will use for segmented data analysis and reporting. Content Tags can be used
to track engagement by Campaign, Channel, Content Type, Influencer or any other data point you
wish to measure.

This graphic shows how a piece of content can be tagged, distributed/amplified by multiple
authors across multiple channels, tracked and reported on.

3.
1.3 Deeper Metrics for Meaningful Data
Deeper metrics, which explore engagement and retention, will paint an accurate picture of how
real your perceived audience is and help you to realize a more accurate ROI for your campaigns.
Creating a report based on deeper metrics will help you to identify the true performance of your
content and enable your team to make smarter, more informed decisions on your strategy moving
forward. Deeper metrics can certainly vary depending on the goals of each campaign, however,
below is a good starting point for engagement analytics.

• An Engagement Timeline - How many clicks have been received over a specified time period?
• Engagement by Content - Which pieces of content are receiving the most or least clicks?
• Engagement by Channel - Which channels are your top and bottom performers?
• Engagement by Influencer - Which of your influencers (who are really just channels through
which you distribute content) are the most engaging? Who is getting clicks on their content and
where?
• Content Conversion Rate - Which content, distributed where, is the most effective at getting
your audience to convert (i.e., fill in a form, download a document, make a purchase)?
This guide will help you obtain and report on the true and full engagement of your content.

Question
HOW DO YOU CURRENTLY TRACK THE TRUE
PERFORMANCE OF YOUR CONTENT?

4.
2. Where do I start?
Of course, start at the end to get to the beginning. Our recommended approach is to begin by
identifying what you want to report on. What are the primary goals for your digital marketing
campaigns and what data do you want to gather, monitor and report on in order to measure
success? Working backwards from the report to your Content Tag structure will ensure your
kontextURLs are configured to gauge performance and will enable you to be able to make
actionable decisions about how to optimize and build on your successes and address your
shortcomings.

Here is the process we recommend following to get the most out of kontextURLs.

2.1 Define Your Reporting Framework

How will you define the success of your campaign? What will your report look
like? Below is a worksheet, along with a couple of suggested content marketing
metrics/KPIs, you may want to measure along with the data you will need to do so.
You can fill in the rest.

KPI Data Required

Engagement by Campaign
Engagement by Influencer
Engagement by Sales Funnel
stage
Number of clicks on content created and distributed within each
campaign.
Number of clicks on content created by each influencer.
Attribute each piece of content as part of the sales funnel
(Awareness, Consideration, Evaluation, Purchase) and report
clicks by sales funnel segment.

5.
2.2 Configure Your Content Tags
Once you have determined the data you need to report on, configure the Content
Tags (Tags) to capture the data. Below are examples of Content Tags:

• Blog Post (Tag = Content Type) • Written by Jim (Tag = Author)

• Written for a U.S. Audience (Tag = Country) • Shared by Mike (Tag = Influencer)
• Shared on Twitter (Tag = Channel) • Part of Fall 2016 Promo (Tag = Campaign)

2.2.1 Content Tags

You can use Content Tags to segment your reporting. For example, tags will enable you to track
clicks by any metrics including by campaign, by channel, by content type or by influencer, if you
are doing influencer marketing. Content Tags are identifiers used to filter and build reports to
provide insightful, meaningful and actionable data.

Segment your data in as many ways as you choose. Compare this to the number of ways you can
categorize your data today.

Below are some Standard Content Tags and Tag Values. This is a basic inventory of tags to assist in
typical engagement reporting scenarios.

Content Tags Tag Values In Example Above

e
Content Type Web Page, Blog Post, Social Post, Ad, Article, Blog Post

l
Press Release, Directory Listing, Image, Video,
Audio.

p
Country Countries to which content will be distributed/ U.S.
targeted.

m
Channels Website, Blog, Social, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter

a
YouTube, Instagram, Google+, Pinterest, Slide
Share, Google Adwords, Bing Ads, Press Release,

x
Offline.

E
Author/Content Creator Names of content authors Jim
Influencer Names of influencers who will distribute the Mike
content.
Campaign Names of individual Campaigns. Fall 2016 Promo
Document Type HTML, PDF, DOC, Slideshow, Image, Video, Audio Not Used
Sales Funnel Stage Stage of the buyer’s journey the content has been Not Used
attributed to.

6.
Additional/default Content Tags are also added to content by gShift, behind the scenes, when
kontextURLs are clicked on. These include the following:

Content Tag Tag Values Example when URL clicked on

by a single visitor*
IP IP address where the click originated. 121.12.12.112
User Agent Which user agent/bot accessed the link. Mozilla
Referrer** Referring URL the user agent/bot came Facebook.com
from.
Browser Chrome, Firefox, Safari, IE, etc. Chrome
Device Make and model of mobile device. Samsung S6
Device Type Desktop, Mobile Phone, Tablet. Mobile Phone
Operating System Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS, etc. Android
Language Language setting from the Browser. English
Geo Location City, Country, Time Zone, Latitude, Longi- New York, New York
tude (where available).
*Detailed click data like this is captured behind the scenes by gShift for every click by every user
on every kontextURL associated with a piece of content. This data can then be used for
detailed reporting and/or personalized content delivery.

**The tags above provide additional details about the engagement of your content, which you
otherwise will not know.

2.2.2 Taxonomy (Optional)

Think of taxonomies as reporting hierarchies for the business initiatives of specific departments or
divisions. For example, many organizations may
choose to have separate taxonomies for content gTip
creators in marketing versus sales. There are Content Tags, Tag Values and Taxonomies
often different team members, influencers, goals should ideally be managed by one person
and campaigns maintained in each department. accountable for the entire list, to prevent
duplicates, redundant tags and misspellings.
Taxonomy structures perform well when the
content tagging structure is stable, unique and not duplicated. However, taxonomies and tags can
each be created after links are already published, when new data requirements are identified.

Separate taxonomies should be created if there is more than one way to organize your data;
perhaps by Division/Department, by Year or by Season, where the click data to be reported on is
different.

7.
Simple Marketing Taxonomy Example
• Campaign
• Channel
• Content Type
• Sales Funnel Stage

2.2.3 Configure Your Campaign/Content Engagement Dashboard

With your Content Tags and Values in place, you are ready to create a Dashboard to report on the
kontextURLs you will be creating and distributing.

We suggest starting small and collecting data on a few key metrics. Here’s an example of a typical
Campaign Dashboard (figure 2.1) comprised of three configurable Data Beacons (Data Beacons are
customizable views of data, in this case, click data) including a breakdown of clicks by Geography,
Real-Time Click Activity, Top Content by Clicks, Clicks by Channel and Clicks by Influencer.
2.1 Campaign Dashboard

Data Beacons are easily configurable through the following steps (Figure 2.2):
1. Title the Beacon
2. Choose Date Range
3. Choose the Data Format (Table, Bar Graph, Pie Chart, Timeline)
4. Filter by Tag and Tag Value e.g. Tag = Channel, Tag Value = Twitter, FB, etc.
5. Save the Beacon
6. Bask in the glory of your click data reporting thus far.

8.
2.2 kontextURLs Configuration Dashboard

2.3 Create and Distribute Your kontextURLs

You can create a single kontextURL (one-by-one) or multiple kontextURLs related to
a single piece of content to be tagged multiple ways (Refer to figure 2.3).

2.3 kontextURLs Creation Dashboard

9.
2.3.1 How to Create a Single kontextURL
Follow these 8 steps:
1. URL to be Tracked:
Be sure to specify the correct
protocol (HTTP or HTTPS)

2. Domain:
Select a domain for your URL.
Note: You can use gShift.it or a
white-labeled domain of your
choosing.

Contact support@gshiftlabs.com if
you need assistance setting up a
white-labeled domain.

3. Friendly/Vanity Path
(Optional):
Enter a vanity or friendly URL
extension to be used after
the domain for branding and
recognition purposes. If left
empty, a random extension will be
auto-generated when the URL is
created.

gTip
A vanity or friendly URL should be used when a link cannot be clicked on and needs
to be remembered/typed in.

For example, gshift.it/FallCampaign may be used for an off-line ad (in a magazine

or radio ad) or on Instagram where it cannot be clicked and must be typed in to be
accessed.

10.
4. URL Title:
Enter a Title for your URL for
reference in reporting. Try to keep
it both short, but descriptive, for
easy identification in Data Beacons
and Reports.

This is auto-generated by default

with the Page Title from the URL to
be tracked.

gTip
Develop a standard naming convention for your kontextURL titles so report labels
make sense.

For example: a blog post shared in the Fall campaign, via Twitter, could be titled
BlogTitle-Fall2016-Twitter

5. Description (Optional):
Enter an optional description for
your URL for additional reference.

6. Tags:
Select Tags (click here to learn
more about Content Tags) you
would like added to the URL.

11.
7. Tag Values:
Select the Tag Values you would
like added to the URL.

8. Create:
Click this button when you have
entered all of the information in
order to create the kontextURL.

The kontextURL will be instantly

displayed for you to copy and
share.

Note: You can find a list of all your kontextURLs in the kontextURL List section.

2.3.2 How To Create Multiple kontextURLs

The kontextURL Multi Creator enables you to create multiple kontextURLs with multiple tags
and tag values all at once so you can distribute/share and track a single piece of content across
multiple channels (i.e, social media, offline, etc.), influencers or other dimensions. For example,
you may want to measure and determine the effectiveness of John versus Sue (Tag 1) sharing
Content Type A versus Content Type B (Tag 2) on Twitter versus Facebook versus LinkedIn (Tag
3). kontextURLs will enable you to gain detailed insights into which content, shared by whom, via
which channels is the top performing combination.

Follow these 15 steps to create multiple kontextURLs at once:

1. URL to be Tracked:
Enter the URL here.
Include the protocol (HTTP or
HTTPS)

12.
2. Domain:
Select a domain for your URL.
Note: You can use gShift.it or a
white-labeled domain of your
choosing.

Contact support@gshiftlabs.com
if you need assistance setting up
a white-labeled domain.

3. Privacy/Cookie Setting:
Select to enable, disable or let
the user choose to use tracking
cookies.

4. Redirect Type
(Optional):
The type of redirect you choose
will affect how the URL behaves
when clicked. 301 redirect is the
default. Switch to Javascript
redirect if you need to pass data
into a 3rd party software,
i.e., HubSpot (see page 28)
5. Select Tags:
Select Tags (click here to learn
more about Content Tags) you
would like added to the URL.

13.
6. Select Tag Values:
Select Tag Values to create the
tag combinations to be used with
your kontextURLs.

7. Reset:
This will clear all settings you
have configured.

8. Next:
This will create your kontextURLs
with the selected tag value
combinations and take you to the
next step.

14.
9. Friendly/Vanity Path
(optional):
Enter a vanity or friendly URL
extension to be used after
the domain for branding and
recognition purposes. If left
empty, a random extension will
be auto-generated when the URL
is created.

gTip
A vanity or friendly URL should be used when a link cannot be clicked on and
needs to be remembered/typed in.

For example, gshift.it/FallCampaign may be used for an off-line ad (in a

magazine or radio ad) or on Instagram where it cannot be clicked and must be
typed in to be accessed.

10. URL Title:

Enter a Title for your URL to
reference in reporting. Try to keep
it both short, but descriptive,
for easy identification in Data
Beacons and Reports.

This is auto-generated by default

with the Page Title from the URL
to be tracked.
11. Description (optional,
but recommended):
Enter a description for your URL
for additional reference in the
kontextURL List, Data Beacons
and Reporting.

15.
12. Destination URL
(optional):
You can edit the destination URL
here to change where the
kontextURLs are pointed.

13. Save:
Click this to save all of the
changes and the kontextURLs.

14. Reset:
Click this button to clear all of
your changes and to start over.

15. Final Step:

Your kontextURLs can now be downloaded in a .CSV file or copied and pasted from the
kontextURLs list for distribution/sharing.

2.4 Monitor Your Content (What Do I Do?)

Now comes the fun part. Seeing how your content is performing. Look at how
a single kontextURL is performing or review your entire campaign through the
Dashboard to understand:

• How is one kontextURL performing?

• How is my campaign (multiple kontextURLs) performing?
• How do I generate reports on my kontextURLs?

16.
2.4.1 How is a single kontextURL performing?
You can access detailed engagement metrics for each kontextURL created via the kontextURL List
including:
• The total number of clicks and unique clicks over the life of the kontextURL.
• A timeline view of clicks and unique clicks.
• A breakdown of the days of the week and times of the day clicks were registered.
• The global geographic distribution of all clicks over the life of the kontextURL.
• A .CSV download of all click details per click including:
• Time Stamp
• IP where click occurred
• Referrer i.e., domain where link was clicked
• Device Type
• Device
• Browser
• O/S
• Geo location – country, state, city, longitude and latitude
• Your selected Content Tags

2.4.2 How is my campaign (multiple kurls) performing?

Data Beacons can be created and configured within a Custom Dashboard to report on whatever
engagement metrics you choose based on the Content Tags and Tag Values you have
assigned to your kontextURLs.
You can analyze this click data to make decisions about how to adjust and optimize
your campaign for maximum effectiveness and ROI (refer to figure 2.4).
2.4 Individual kontextURL Details

17.
2.5 How Do I Generate Reports on my kontextURLs?
Generate a report based on the Content Tags and Tag Values created at any point
during or after your campaign has run.

There are three kontextURL Engagement Reports you can run to gain a historical view of your click
data. They are as follows:
• kontextURL Tag Report
• kontextURL Engagement Report
• Advanced kontextURL Engagement Report

2.5.1 kontextURL Tag Report

Download a simple .XLS output of kontextURL click data (Figure 2.5) for a specified time period.
The click data file through this report can be filtered by kontextURL, Tag (i.e., campaign, channel,
etc. ) or Tag Value (i.e., Twitter, Email, etc.) and then also grouped by Tag, Tag Value or kontextURL.

Example: Generate an .XLS report for a specific campaign (filtered by Tag Value = Campaign B)
and grouped by Social Channel (grouped by Tag = Social Channel).
2.5 .XLS Output Of kontextURL Click Data

2.5.2 kontextURL Engagement Report

Configure and download an annotated kontextURL Engagement Report based on a single or
multiple Campaigns, standardized Content Tags and for a specified date range or two comparative
time periods.

18.
This report can be configured to provide a Total Engagement Timeline and/or the Top Performing
(refer to figure 2.6 & 2.7):

• Content by Engagement • Content by Channel

• kontextURLs by Engagement • kontextURLs by Channel
• Channels by Engagement • kontextURLs by Content
• Influencers by Engagement • Influencers by Channel
• Geography by Engagement • Channels by Influencer
• Device Type by Engagement • Influencers by Content
• Content Type by Engagement • Influencers by kontextURL
Click here to see an example of a full report.
Figure 2.6 kontextURL Report Configuration

Figure 2.7 kontextURL Beacons

19.
2.5.3 Advanced kontextURL Engagement Report
If you require data beyond the Content Tags set in the standard report, use the Advanced
kontextURL Engagement Report to pull data from custom tag values and date ranges. This report is
available in tables, charts, Excel or PDF formats.

2.5.4 API Access

Please contact us if you or your team would like to obtain the above data in
API format.

20.
3. Advanced System Settings & Features
There are five areas to be configured within kontextURL settings. This is usually done when the
kontextURL account is first created.

1. IP Blacklisting (Highly Recommended)

Engagement from devices at the identified blacklisted IP will be filtered out and not be reported
to you as engagement. e.g. office IP, client IP, etc. For example, you will want to exclude your
office IP, Client IP and other relevant IPs.
2. White-labeled Domains (Highly Recommended)
Add the white-labeled domains to be used when creating kontextURLs. Click here to learn how
to set up your white-labeled domains.
3. Google Analytics
This advanced feature is for marketers who prefer to analyze click engagement data within
Google Analytics. Input the GA Profile (Tracking Code) to which kontextURL click or Content Tag
Value data is to be passed.
4. Tracking Codes and Default Redirect Type
a. Input the Profiles (Tracking Codes) of third-party applications (i.e., HubSpot, Marketo) to which
kontextURL click events/pageviews are to be passed.
b. Select JavaScript Redirect as the Default Redirect Type if the majority of the kontextURL
clicks you will be recording will be passed to your chosen third-party application as
page views.
5. Privacy Policies
Privacy policies can be created, edited, and associated with kontextURLs, which will then
be displayed to users when they click on kontextURLs. Privacy policies are to be used when
marketing to audiences in geographic locations where users must be notified when link
tracking/cookies are being used to monitor online behavior.

3.1 More on Data Beacons and Custom Dashboards

gShift Dashboards and Data Beacons have been designed to enable ongoing data monitoring
and insights. There are three beacons to report and facilitate content publishing decisions with
kontextURLs:
A. Generic Data Beacon
B. Geographic Distribution Beacon
C. Real-time Click Tracking Ticker

21.
A. Generic Data Beacon
This Beacon can be configured to display total and unique click data for a specified date range
in a tabular, bar graph, pie chart or timeline format. The click data displayed in this Beacon can
be filtered by kontextURL, Tag (e.g. Campaign, Channel, etc. ) or Tag Value (e.g. Twitter, Email,
etc.) and then also grouped by Tag, Tag Value or kontextURL.
3.1 Generic kontextURL Data Beacon Displays

Example: You may want to see the engagement for all kontextURLs within a specific campaign
(filtered by Tag Value = Campaign A) and grouped by Social Network (grouped by Tag =
Social Channel).

22.
B. Geographic Distribution Beacon
This Beacon (figure 3.1) can be configured to display the geographic breakdown of clicks on a
world map for a specified date range. The click data displayed in this Beacon can be filtered by
kontextURL, Tag (e.g. Campaign, Channel, etc.) or Tag Value (e.g. Twitter, Email, etc.).
3.1 kontextURL Geographic Distribution Beacon

Example: You may want to see the geographic engagement for all kontextURLs within a specific
campaign (filtered by Tag Value – Campaign A).

C. Real-Time Click Tracking Ticker

Monitor the number of clicks being registered within a 15-minute time period and updated
every 30 seconds. This Beacon (figure 3.2) is useful for monitoring the engagement of content
immediately following the launch of a new digital campaign.
3.2 kontextURL Real-Time Click Tracking Ticker Beacon

Note: The gShift Dashboard Reporting feature can be used to generate a PDF of all Beacons within
any given Dashboard. Alternatively, a snapshot (.JPG) can be taken of any Beacon or the data from
a Beacon can be downloaded in .CSV format. Have your data your way.

23.
3.2 Filtering out Bots
Website traffic generated by bots (automated referral spam) is an industry-wide issue. In some
cases, this false traffic can account for up to 60% of clicks on any given piece of content. As such,
gShift offers a bot filtering option to filter out these clicks and only report on real, human traffic.
This filtering option is available and turned ON by Default within both gShift kontextURL Data
Beacons and kontextURL Reports.

Note: Bot filtering is a key tool for managing traffic and engagement expectations. You must
decide before creating a campaign whether or not you will be filtering out bots. Turning on
bot filtering mid-campaign will have an effect; creating a significant dip in engagement. We
recommend starting and continuing a campaign with bot filters turned on for apples-to-apples
data.

24.
4. What is a Conversion Path?
A conversion path is a connected path of discrete pieces of off-site or on-site content, which ends
at a desired conversion point. This conversion point may be a link or button to be clicked on, a
thank you page following a form submission or a check out page following a purchase. We believe
there is no such thing as a stranded piece of content or ‘no content shall be an island’ where a
buyer is left without an option. Each piece, whether on-site or off, should lead to another piece of
content until a final end point is reached.

We believe there is no such thing as a stranded

piece of content or ‘no content shall be an island’
where a buyer is left without an option.

Simple Conversion Path Example

Step 1 – Multiple influencers post
content to their social networks
containing a link to a Landing Page
Step 2 - Landing Page with a form
and Call to Action (CTA) button or
link
Step 3 – Thank you page (i.e,
Conversion)

4.1 Reporting on Content ROI

You can define the Total Marketing Spend associated with a Conversion Path and assign a
Conversion Value. These two values along with the total number of completed conversions will be
used to calculate a Return on Investment.
# of Conversions x Conversion Value/ Total Marketing Spend x 100 = ROI
Multiple conversion paths (with different steps) can be created to compare the effectiveness and
ROI associated with one channel versus another (i.e., Twitter versus Facebook or Influencer 1
(John) versus Influencer 2 (Mary)).

14,300 Conversions x $1/Conversion/$200x100 =7150.00% (refer to conversion path example

4.1 on the page 26)

25.
4.2 Conversion Path Data Beacon
This beacon (figure 4.2) provides a visualization of a Conversion Path. A Conversion Path is broken
down by steps each showing the number of clicks IN, the number/average clicks to the next step
and the number/average clicks OUT (Exits).
4.2 Conversion Path Data Beancon

The Conversion Total is calculated based on the number of conversions x the Conversion Value.

Total Spend is the total amount spent on building, hosting and distributing the content across all
of the steps of the path.

ROI = Conversion Total/Total Spend x 100

Conversion Target Gauge – Number of conversions/progress versus target to date.

26.
 4.3 Multiple Conversion Path Data Beancons

Multiple conversion paths (figure 4.3), which have the same conversion point, but different steps
to reach it can be set up and then visualized side-by-side in a Dashboard to monitor and identify
which path is most effective. In the following example, both paths end on the same Thank You
page.

Conversion Path 1
Step 1 - Twitter Post with link to Landing Page A
Step 2 - Landing Page A with a form and Call to Action (CTA) button or link
Step 3 – Thank You page (i.e. Conversion)

Conversion Path 2
Step 1 – Facebook Post with link to Landing Page B
Step 2 - Landing Page B with a form and Call to Action (CTA) button or link
Step 3 – Thank You page (i.e., Conversion)

4.3 Decisions you can make with conversion path analytics

The visualization of these two paths will determine which combination of social post (Twitter
versus Facebook) and Landing Page content/Call to Action (Landing Page A versus Landing Page B)
was most effective and drove the highest conversion rate/ROI. This same approach can be used to
conduct multivariate testing of different content combinations.

27.
5. Lead Scoring Integration
HubSpot Integration and Off-Site Content Lead Scoring
gShift’s HubSpot integration enables kontextURL click information to be sent to HubSpot for
integration with existing on-site page views and contact lead scoring. HubSpot users can now see
3rd party off-site engagement, through kontextURLs, in the exact same way they see and score on-
site content engagement, thereby enabling more accurate lead scoring.

How it Works
When a kontextURL is resolved and the browser is redirected to the destination URL, the redirect
process invokes the same HubSpot tracking code as if the browser were viewing/accessing onsite
content.

Lead Scoring, Lead Stages, Contacts and Pageviews are all managed in exactly the same way in
HubSpot. However, HubSpot users will now also associate Lead Scores with kontextURLs used for
off-site content.

gShift Setup
5.1 gShift kontextURL Account Configuration

1. Add the HubSpot Portal ID under the tracking codes tab in kontextURLs Settings.
2. Select JavaScript Redirect as the Default Redirect Type, if the majority of the kontextURL clicks
you will be recording will be passed to HubSpot as page views.
5.2 HubSpot Account Configuration

28.
HubSpot Setup
1. The domain used in kontextURLs needs to be setup as a cross-linked domain in HubSpot under
Reports>Settings.
2. A contact conversion form in HubSpot needs to be created (or use an existing form).
3. A cross-domain link needs to be created to link the kontextURL domain to the on-site property
domain. This can be accomplished by creating a kontextURL for any on-site content page.

How It’s Used

Contacts, Pageviews and Lead Scoring are not managed any differently in HubSpot. However,
HubSpot users will now also associate Lead Scores with kontextURLs used for off-site content
(Refer to figure 5.3 and 5.4). When these kontextURLs are associated with and used to distribute
off-site content, the clicks on these kontextURLs will appear as pageviews and will be scored for
those with HubSpot Contacts who have converted on-site by completing a form.
5.3 HubSpot Lead Scoring Dashboard

5.4 HubSpot Profile

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6. Using kontextURLs with Paid Campaigns
kontextURLs can be used to track and validate paid ads, including Google AdWords or sponsored
social media posts. They provide the ability to create better segmented and consolidated reporting
via Content Tags, Conversion Paths and real-time click tracking.

Although most platforms offer their own top-level analytics, kontextURLs enable you to see how
each piece of content your distribute is performing in one place. This is particularly important if you
are running ads across platforms. Separate conversion paths can be created for each channel and
then compared to validate your campaign spend and quickly refine ads which aren’t performing,
thereby saving you money and maximizing ROI.

Click here to learn how to configure kontextURLs for use within Google AdWords.

kontextURLs can validate your campaign spend in

real time, enabling you to refine the ads that aren’t
performing quickly thus saving you money and
maximizing ROI

30.
7. Advanced kontextURL Features
There are several Advanced kontextURL features you can use to:
• Customize how/where you report on content engagement
• Generate dynamic content based on which Tag Values have been invoked
• Pass dynamic cookie-based data through to a CRM or other third-party application

Tag Forwarding and Aliasing

Tag forwarding and aliasing in gShift can be used for two purposes:
• To pass gShift Content Tags through to a destination URL - Content Tags can be included as URL
parameters, which a Web server can interpret and potentially use to deliver dynamic content.
• To pass kontextURL clicks as events and Content Tags through to connected analytics solutions
in order to generate filtered reporting within those solutions.

7.1 Google Analytics Integration 7.1 Tag Forwarding and Aliasing Configuration

Add Google Profile (Tracking ID) to kontextURL

settings in order to be able to pass click data
and Tags Values into GA (figure 7.1).

Map gShift Content Tags to standard GA UTMs,

or to Custom Dimensions in order to maintain
consistency in reporting.

kontextURL Tag Values will be reflected in

Google Analytics reporting under the associated
dimensions.

Contact support@gshiftlabs.com if you need

help associating your Google Analytics UTM
parameters with kontextURL Content Tag Values.

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7.2 Using kontextURLs for Dynamic Content and A/B Testing
kontextURLs can facilitate Dynamic Content Redirection via an .htaccess file included on your Web
server. Redirects enable you to direct website visitors to specific content based on criteria you
define related to the URLs/Content they are engaging with. For example, you may wish to direct all
those who engage a piece of content on Twitter to one piece of content and those all who engage
with a piece of content on Facebook to another. These redirects can be based on the following:
kontextURLs, Content Tags/Tag Values and/or dynamic aliases.

Redirects can be simply configured via the following steps:

1. Login to gShift and navigate to kontextURLs.
2. Create a Tag.
3. Use HTML page names as Tag Values/Aliases. e.g. index.html, page1.html, page2.html
4. When creating your kontextURL, configure Tag Forwarding to send the tag to the selected
website.
5. Add the following code to your website’s .htaccess file:
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^PAGE=(.+)$
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://%{HTTP_HOST}/%1?
--
(The Tag Alias=PAGE)

The rewrite rule above takes the value which is in the “Page” attribute and will change the
destination page accordingly. For example:

http://www.domain.com/index.html?PAGE=Facebook -> http://www.domain.com/Facebook

7.3 Pass Dynamic Cookie Information

By selecting this option when you create a kontextURL, you can pass cookie-based data (e.g. User
Session ID) along to your Web server when the kontextURL is clicked. This data will be appended
to the destination URL, where it can then be captured and used to potentially identify a user and/or
their preferences within a CRM or other third-party application.

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 You’re Done!
You now know how to use kontextURLs to start tracking your off site content and start illuminating,
what we like to call, the Dark Funnel.

Thanks for taking the time to read our guide on kontextURLs. If you have any questions, comments,
or concerns about our kontextURLs user guide, please feel free to contact us anytime and we will
be happy to answer.

Glossary
What is off-site content?
Off-site content is any piece of content you distribute off of your primary website, and for which
you do not have direct access to analytics data. These may include social content, 3rd party blog
posts, press releases, directory listings, articles on 3rd party websites or offline content.

While organizations understand the need for distribution and influence, they lack visibility into the
metrics required to evaluate their off-site content performance properly.

The off-site and on-site customer journey is no longer a straight line. Rather, potential customers
will engage through several off-site channels, in whatever order suits them best and will go in
and out of an organization’s website before choosing to self-identify, make contact and convert.
Consumers lead the charge in how they choose to engage with brands and their content.

To learn more about the new customer journey, watch our video on The Dark Funnel

What is on-site content?

On-site content is any piece of content you distribute, which you own on a website for which you
have access to analytics data. kontextURLs can also be used for advanced tracking of on-site
content.

What are Content Tags and Tag Values?

Content Tags are relevant attributes assigned to your destination URL, which are used to generate
segmented click reporting. These attributes can be related to the content itself or to the channels
via which the content is to be distributed. To be clear, a piece of content is not physically ‘tagged’
with either a tracking pixel or JavaScript code, but an engagement event is measured when a user
clicks on a kontextURL.

gshiftlabs.com sales@gshiftlabs.com :: 1 866 743 5960 @gShiftLabs :: facebook.com/gshiftlabs 33.

gShift Tags are simply associated with the content and kontextURL when the kontextURL is
created. With these Tags in place, you are able to see how content was viewed (clicked on) using
these Tags as filters in your Data Beacons/Dashboards or Reports.

What is a Taxonomy?
A taxonomy is a logical grouping of Content Tags or a Tag structure, which enables larger
enterprises to keep content and reporting focused and organized in a meaningful fashion. Common
examples of taxonomies are eCommerce website navigation (how are products organized to make
them easier to find) or the Dewey Decimal System in a library designed to help people find books
faster.

Taxonomy examples: If your organization is a large enterprise/brand, you may create taxonomies
by department (e.g. sales vs. marketing). If you’re an agency, you may create different taxonomies
for different clients depending on their reporting needs.

Click here for more on Taxonomy best practices.

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