How to add an 'email this post' link including Google Analytics tracking to your Post

[admin]

Social media buzz or not, email is still the most frequently used tool to share interesting things with your network so why not make it as easy as possible for them?

Would you like to add an 'email this post' link with Google Analytics tracking to your Posterous blog similar to the below (Thanks Ian, for prompting us to write about this)?



The email would like similar to the below once people click on the above 'email this post' link, as you can see the email is ready to be send including perma link to the post and Google Analytics tracking parameters.



1. Ok, first you need to generate a URL with Google Analytics tracking parameters so any clicks are picked-up and recorded. Skip this step if you don't want to track responses from forwarded emails.

To generate your URL go to the below page and fill in the form as shown as shown, generate the URL and copy it.

http://www.google.com.au/support/goo...k&answer=55578

Website URL: http://www.domain.com/
Campaign Source: email-post
Campaign Medium: email
Campaign Name: email-post



The tracking URL should look similar to the below depending on how much you changed the above form text.

http://www.domain.com/?utm_source=email-post&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=email-post


2. Now you need to prepare the custom mailto link code that you can insert into your custom Posterous theme including the appended Google Analytics tracking parameters. To do that go to the below site, fill in the form as shown, generate the mailto URL and copy it.

http://email.about.com/library/misc/...to_encoder.htm

To: AAA
Subject: BBBTitleCCC
Body: I thought you might find this post interesting.
DDDPermalinkEEE?utm_source=email-post&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=email-post

Make sure you add the Google Analytics tracking parameters highlighted above to the body text behind the 'DDDPermalinkEEE' part.



The mailto URL should look similar to the below depending on how much you changed the above form text.





3. Also, before we can insert the code into the Posterous theme we need to first clean it up a little and turn it into an actual link.

A) Completely remove the 'AAA' in the above URL.
B) Change the 'BBB' to '{' and the 'CCC' to '}'.
C) Change the 'DDD' to '{' and the 'EEE' to '}'.

Please make sure you only replace and remove exactly what I highlighted above otherwise the code may break. Once done the code should look similar to the below.





D) Finally wrap the encoded URL into an actual HTML link tag. Once done the final code should look similar to the below.




4. Ok, you're ready to insert the code into your custom Posterous theme. For more information on how to install a custom theme visit the below page.


http://themes.posterous.com/get-a-custom-theme

To have the link appear in the same position as on our blog copy and paste the HTML link code into the following position.





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