What Are UTMs And How Do I Use Them Effectively?

UTMs are tags that can be added to the end of a URL, allowing you to track traffic sources. It allows a more granular breakdown of what traffic came from where, and consists of 5 parameters, automatically recognised in Google Analytics:

utm_source
utm_medium
utm_campaign
utm_content
utm_term

This is an important addition to your tracking set-up as it allows you to accurately attribute metrics to their sources.

Some platforms allow you to build UTM tracking parameters within the platform, however, Google has a great tool called ‘URL builder’ that allows you to create a link you can copy and paste.

As you can see, 3 parameters are starred, these are the ones essential to implement. The 5 fields all track something different:

Campaign source:

This is the platform where the traffic originated from (eg. Google, Facebook, Email, Tiktok).

Campaign medium:

This is used to track what type of traffic it was (eg. paid search, organic, email, paid social).

Campaign name:

This is the name of the specific campaign that drove traffic.

Campaign term:

This is to track what keyword a user came from and is used for paid search ads.

Campaign content:

This can differentiate between ads or posts or which link was clicked if multiple CTAs are used.

There are some key things to keep in mind when building the UTM parameters. The first is that they are case-sensitive, so be consistent. The second is to be consistent and keep the naming conventions the same across your whole team. The links will come out quite long, but they will still work even when shortened with tools like Bitly.

UTMs allow you to track exactly what Tweet drove what traffic, what audience spends the longest on-site, what channel has the highest conversion rate and much more. It takes results beyond vanity metrics and allows you to review, manage and optimise based on relevant data.

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