Measure What Matters: A Simple Guide to Analytics for Email and Text Campaigns

A few weeks ago, I was on a call with a nonprofit director who sounded frustrated.

She said,

“James, we send emails. We send texts. We post on social media. But I honestly don’t know what’s working.”

That sentence stuck with me.

They weren’t lazy.
They weren’t “doing nothing.”
They were doing everything—but they had no clear way to tell what was actually making a difference.

That’s when I realized something important:

Most fundraising and outreach problems are not message problems. They’re measurement problems.

This is where analytics comes in.

Not as a scary technical tool.
But as a way to answer one simple question:

Did this actually work?

What Is Analytics (in plain English)?

Analytics simply means paying attention to what people do after you send a message.

For example:

• Did anyone click the link?
• How many people visited your website?
• How long did they stay?
• Did they donate, sign up, or take another action?

Analytics helps you learn:

• Which messages work
• What time of day works best
• Which campaigns fall flat
• Where people lose interest

It turns guessing into learning.

Two Types of Tracking You Should Know

There are two main ways to understand campaign performance.

1) Link Click Tracking (Did they click?)

This answers one important question: did someone take action on your message?

Most email and marketing platforms can track clicks, including tools like:

• Rally
• Mailchimp
• HubSpot
• Salesforce
• …and other email tools

With Rally SMS, each contact can receive their own custom link. That means we can tell:

• Which contact clicked
• When they clicked
• How many times the link was clicked

This is especially powerful with text messaging because it’s direct, fast, and every click is tied to a real person (not just an anonymous number on a chart).

2) Google Analytics (What did they do next?)

Google Analytics (GA4) shows what happens after the click—once someone arrives on your website.

It can tell you things like:

• How many people visited your site
• Which pages they viewed
• How long they stayed
• Whether they completed a goal (donation, signup, form, etc.)

So instead of only seeing “people clicked,” you can see the full picture:

1. Message sent
2. Link clicked
3. Website visited
4. Action taken (or not taken)

That’s real insight.

What Are UTM Parameters (and what does UTM mean)?

UTM stands for Urchin Tracking Module—named after Urchin, an early web analytics product that Google acquired before launching what became Google Analytics.

A UTM parameter is just a small piece of text added to the end of a link so Google Analytics can understand where a visit came from (like email, text, or social) and which campaign drove that visit.

A normal link looks like this:

https://demo.charity/donate

A UTM link looks like this:

https://demo.charity/donate?utm_source=text&utm_medium=sms&utm_campaign=spring_fundraiser

UTMs help answer questions like:

• Did this visitor come from email or text?
• Which campaign drove this visit?
• Which message performed best?

UTMs are useful—but it’s important to understand what they depend on.

Client-Side vs Server-Side Tracking (the difference that matters)

Here’s where things get a little technical—but still simple.

Client-side tracking (like UTMs in Google Analytics)

UTMs and Google Analytics depend heavily on the visitor’s device and browsing environment. In practice, that means they can be affected by:

• Browsers and in-app browsers (Facebook, Instagram, Gmail, etc.)
• JavaScript running on the page
• Cookie settings and privacy features
• Ad blockers and tracking prevention
• How a link is shared or forwarded

Sometimes UTM parameters can be lost or not attributed the way you expect—for example if:

• A link gets copied/pasted and the tracking part is removed
• An app opens the link in a way that changes attribution
• Privacy features limit cookie-based tracking

Bottom line: UTMs usually work, but they are not guaranteed to work perfectly in every situation. This is one reason why numbers in Google Analytics don’t always match your email or SMS platform.

Server-side tracking (how Rally tracks link clicks)

Rally uses server-side redirect tracking for link clicks.

That means:

• The click is recorded on Rally’s servers first
• Then the person is redirected to your destination page
• Click tracking does not rely on the visitor’s browser running JavaScript

In simple terms:

• Server-side tracking is more reliable for counting clicks.
• Google Analytics is better for understanding what happened after the click (on-site behavior).

They serve different purposes—and they work best together.

Why You Need Both Rally + Google Analytics

Think of it this way:

• Rally answers: Who clicked?
• Google Analytics answers: What did they do next?

Together, they help you:

• Improve your message
• Improve your timing
• Improve your website experience
• Improve your results

You stop asking:

“Did this campaign work?”

And start asking:

“How can we make the next one better?”

Analytics Helps You Optimize What Matters

With good data, you can learn:

• What time of day gets the most clicks
• Which messages perform best
• Which pages people leave quickly
• Which pages convert (donations, signups, registrations)

This helps you:

• Waste less effort
• Make smarter decisions
• Respect your audience’s attention
• Increase your return on investment

As the saying goes: what gets measured gets improved.

A Free Offer for Rally Customers

If you’re a Rally customer, we want to help you see this clearly.

You can add analytics@rallycorp.com to your Google Analytics account with view-only access.

That allows our team to:

• Review your analytics with you
• Match Rally link clicks to Google Analytics traffic
• Help interpret what the numbers mean
• Suggest improvements to your strategy

What you get:

• A free analytics review
• A 30-minute call
• Clear next steps

No pressure. No sales pitch. Just clarity.

What We’ll Cover on the Call

We’ll walk through:

• Your link click data
• Your website traffic (Google Analytics)
• Which campaigns worked best
• How to improve send timing
• How to improve your website experience after the click
• What to test next

Analytics only matters if it leads to action.

Final Thought

You already send messages.
Now it’s time to learn from them.

Measure what matters.
Improve what works.
Multiply your impact.

Ready to Get Started?

If you’re a Rally customer:

1. Add analytics@rallycorp.com to your Google Analytics with view-only access
2. Book a free 30-minute review call (email support for the booking link)
3. Let us help you connect the dots between messages and results

Not yet a customer?
Book a demo and let’s talk about your goals and how Rally can help.

If you need help setting this up, contact support and we’ll guide you.