Hello there @williemb2,
Thank you for reaching out to us.
Firstly, I’d like to clarify that the ‘Basic’ setting for ‘Engagement analytics tracking’ is designed to collect minimal information necessary for functionality without delving into more detailed analytics that some users might prefer to avoid. However, I understand your concern about the lack of an outright ‘Disable’ option.
Regarding the appending of UTM parameters to your WordPress post URLs, this practice is indeed standard for tracking the effectiveness of email campaigns. Still, we recognize that it can cause issues with certain analytics plugins and create privacy warnings in email clients.
Currently, MailPoet automatically adds these UTM parameters to track clicks from emails. The feature helps in understanding the effectiveness of email marketing efforts, but our team understands the necessity for flexibility in its use.
Here’s what you can do:
- Consider using a plugin or custom code snippets to strip UTM parameters upon arrival at your site, allowing your analytics plugin to register the view while maintaining the tracking benefits through the MailPoet platform.
Cheers!
Hello @geraltrivia,
Thanks for clarifying this. Over the past week we have evaluated alternatives to MailPoet and we think we have found a plugin that is still capable of sending newsletters to inform our members, instead of campaigns to track people and trick them into impulse buys.
Hi again @willemb2,
Just to clarify this issue for other MailPoet users who may be looking for additional information here, we recently changed this behaviour in MailPoet.
The UTM parameters used to be added to links in newsletters based on the presence of a GoogleID field. If the field was filled in – which **it is by default when using the premium plugin** — then UTM tracking was also added to all links. When creating an email, you can manually clear the GoogleID field to not have UTM parameters added.
Please note this was the behaviour up to version 4.44.0.
In version 4.44.1, we changed this to add UTM parameters to all links in order to make Google Analytics tracking more reliable. However, we are now rethinking that as the best solution here.
We are now working on a change to remove all UTM fields when the tracking setting under MailPoet > Settings on the “Advanced” tab is set to Basic, but include those fields when this setting is “Partial” or “Full”. This setting would “rule all” and whether or not a GoogleID is present would not matter.
All that is to say:
- if you do not wish to have UTM fields, you can downgrade to version 4.44.0 of the plugin for now, set your tracking level to Basic, and ensure you do not use the GoogleID when creating and sending emails (it will need to be manually cleared).
- then, watch the release notes for an updated version that will remove the UTM fields when the tracking is set to Basic for all cases.
Thanks for clarifying, @lynnjat7. We’re currently very happy with the Italian alternative. The next time I need a newsletter setup I’ll check back here to see what the outcome of the A12s rethinking is.
To make us come back anything related to Google or tracking should be absent or at least strictly optional. We don’t like the Pied Pipers tune and we don’t want to look at the Internet through his colored goggles.
Hi again @willemb2,
Glad to be able to provide some context, and thank you for adding your voice to this concern from our users. Please do keep an eye on upcoming release notes for this change, we’d love to see you back on MailPoet someday.
In the meantime, happy mailing!
