As custom groups are very important in Tracker.ly, we've done a bit to help you get the most out of them. If you haven't yet, read the sections on creating redirect links and destinations to get an idea of what types of custom groups to put into each redirects and destinations. Briefly, when creating redirects, put in groups that describe where you're publishing the marketing, and when creating destinations, put in groups that describe where you're sending people.



1) Groups Auto-complete


The first thing we do to help with groups is auto-complete them as you enter them. So, when you're assigning custom groups to redirect links and destinations, as you are typing in a group, we show any existing groups you've previously used that match what you're typing. This makes it less likely that you'll end up with multiple groups that should be the same group, like having for example, both a group called "affiliate links" and one called "affiliate link", without the "s". This will help keep your groups organized.




2) Merge Groups


If you do accidentally create two groups that really should be the same group, you can easily merge them together. You can also rename groups. To do that, click either the "Rename / Merge X Redirect Link Groups" in the "Redirect Links" section of the home page of the wizard, or click the "Rename / Merge X Destination Groups" in the "Destinations" section of the wizard. (They are two separate lists, because they describe two separate things.) From there, the process of editing groups is the same for redirects and destinations.


For example, there are two groups, "affiliate link" and "Affiliate Links", which should be merged into one group:




Select them both (you can select as many as you want), and the button at the bottom changes to "Merge Groups":




On the next screen, either give it a brand new name by typing it at the top, where it says, "New Group Name", or select one of the existing names being merged. In this case, we're merging them together into the existing "Affiliate Links" group:




3) Rename Groups


From that previous group management page, which lists all the groups for either redirect links or destinations, you can also rename a single group by selecting it and clicking the "Edit Group Name" button at the bottom, which will only be there if there is just one group selected:




On the next page, just enter in the new name. I like to use capitals and I might be a little obsessive compulsive, so I'll rename "tracker.ly" to "Tracker.ly":



You can also get to this screen to rename a group by hovering your mouse over a group in the groups report, and clicking the edit button.



4) Search By Group


In any screen where you're choosing a destination or redirect link, you can filter the list to only see the ones in a specific group by clicking the "Find by Group" button. This is very useful if you have lots of destinations or redirect links.



Once you click that button, you see a list of all your groups. You can go back by clicking the "Redirects" button, show all your redirects by clicking the "All groups combined", or click any of the group names to just see redirect links in that group:





5) Filter Reports By Groups

Once you have lots of data coming in, you can filter the reports by groups to show only traffic coming in from redirect links in specific groups, or going to destinations in specific groups. 

For example, if you created unique redirect links for each link in an ebook, and put them all in the group, "Ebooks" and in the group, "Name of book", where that's the name of the ebook, you could then see all the traffic coming from that book. Or, if you had all the redirect links you use in PPC adds in the "PPC" group, and all the redirect links in Google Ads also in the "Google Adwords" group, you could see all the traffic coming from PPC ads, or just the sub-set of those coming from Google. Similarly, if you had all the redirect links you use in broadcast emails, in the "Broadcast Emails" group, and also in the group named after the list you sent the email from, you could see all the traffic coming from those marketing efforts. Etc.

In the search panel, there are two group sections. The first one filters by redirect link groups. The second one filters by destination groups:


You can enter in the name of a group to include or exclude with any combination of redirect and destination groups. It will offer auto-complete suggestions. Once you add one, you can add another, so you can tell it to include or exclude multiple groups. 

Clicking on the blue "menu" button beside the group field will list off all your groups to search and pick from:


As soon as you click "Apply" or add a group to the include or exclude list, your results will update to match the new report.




6) Compare Groups

The final awesome bit with groups is the ability to compare how one group is doing against another. For example, if you have multiple ebooks, and each link in each ebook is unique and is in a group named after the title of the ebook, as I described above, then you can go to the "Redirect Groups" report in the dashboard, and see all the traffic coming from each group. Since you can put in any groups you can think of, this really lets you see how pretty much anything is doing compared to anything else.

It's not that exciting with my test account here, but when you get real data going, this is going to change your life. :-)