How to Set Up Yelp Link Tracking

May 16, 2019

Did you know you can turn on link tracking once a business has become a paid advertiser on Yelp? Yelp offers this to give advertisers insight into site traffic that originated from a visit to their Yelp profile page. This feature is useful for advertisers who use Google Analytics to determine how many sessions, clicks, and conversions on their site were attributed to a Yelp ad click or a Yelp page visit.

Note that there are different methods to set up link tracking:

  1. 1. One method is via the Link Tracking feature in the Yelp advertiser dashboard
  2. 2. The other is via appending the appropriate UTM parameters to the landing page URLs used for the business website or the Yelp profile call to action button.
How to Set Up Link Tracking for Yelp Ads

Link tracking can be set up on Yelp once you have signed up as a paid Yelp advertiser. Below are instructions to how you can set up link tracking for traffic that came to your Yelp business profile through a Yelp ad click:

  1. 1. Access the Yelp advertising dashboard via https://biz.yelp.com.
  2. 2. On the left-hand menu, go to All Locations > Yelp Ads.
  3. 3. Select the Link Tracking tab.
  4. 4. Find the campaign you would like to set up link tracking for and select Edit.
  5. 5. You will see options to edit the link tracking for your Website and for your Call to Action:
  9. 6. Fill in the UTM parameters you would like appended to your landing page URLs. An example of the set of parameters we like to use for advertisers are for Google Analytics: utm_source=yelp&utm_medium=cpc&campaign=ads.
  10. 7. Click Save. You now have link tracking set up for traffic for visitors that click on your Yelp ad and then click on your Yelp CTA button or click to your website through your Yelp page.
How to Set Up Link Tracking for Yelp Traffic

Another option is to append the appropriate UTM parameters to landing page URLs used for your Yelp call-to-action button and for your website URL featured on your Yelp page. An example of a Yelp profile page CTA is outlined in a red box here:

Below are instructions to how you can set up link tracking for these features:

Yelp Link Tracking Setup for CTA Traffic

  1. 1. Access the Yelp advertising dashboard via https://biz.yelp.com.
  2. 2. On the left-hand menu, select the location you would like to edit the link tracking for.
  3. 3. You will see the following menu – select Call to Action.
  7. 4. Under Web Call to Action, you will see a field that says, “This Call to Action is linking to:” followed by a URL. Click on the Edit button underneath this field.
  11. 5. You will see an option to edit the landing page for your website CTA:
  15. 6. Fill in the landing page URL with appended UTM parameters for your CTA. An example of the set of parameters we like to use for advertisers is
    utm_source=yelp&utm_medium=cpc&campaign=yelp_cta
  16. 7. Click Save. Now you have set up link tracking for site traffic originating from a Yelp CTA click, whether or not that visitor originally clicked through a paid ad.

Yelp Link Tracking Setup for Website URLs

  1. 1. Access the Yelp advertising dashboard via https://biz.yelp.com.
  2. 2. On the left-hand menu, select the location you would like to edit the link tracking for. An example of what this looks like in the dashboard is below:
  6. 3. You will see the following menu – select Call to Action.
  10. 4. You will see the Basic Information section containing the website URL featured on your Yelp profile page. Click Edit in the upper right-hand corner of this field.
  11. 5. Under the Web Address field you should see your website name:
  15. Append the UTM parameters you would like to use to the end of this URL. Make sure to include a “?” at the beginning of the string of parameters.  An example of a set of parameters we like to use for advertisers is
    ?utm_source=yelp&utm_medium=cpc&campaign=yelp_profile
  16. 6. Click Save Changes. Now you have set up link tracking for site traffic originating from your Yelp profile page, whether or not that visitor originally clicked through a paid ad.

Now you have the steps you need to start gaining insights on traffic that came directly from your Yelp page. Note that you will need to access Google Analytics or a third party tracking solution to look at this data and your tags should be customized to your tracking requirements.