Every entrepreneur knows that conducted campaigns should be not only impressive but also effective. The effectiveness of marketing activities is typically measured by the amount of traffic acquired on the landing page and conversions.
How to measure them? Where to look for information and hard data on the campaign results in Google Ads, Meta Ads, or social media? If you want to know which tweets, videos, or posts on FB or IG generated leads, and which failed, it’s time to get acquainted with UTM tags.
What are UTM tags?
UTM tags are one of the ways to track the effectiveness of every digital marketing campaign. The UTM tracking module, or in other words Urchin Tracking Module is a simple parameter that can be added to any URL to generate analytical data for online campaigns.
It has no impact on positioning and SEO, and it does not change the link itself (the end recipient will arrive at the same place by clicking on a URL with UTM as by clicking on an address without it).
In accordance with best practices, UTMs should be used only for external links—never for internal ones. This is because UTM tags in internal campaigns can disrupt the original effectiveness results of individual external campaigns.
Using UTM tags in Meta (e.g., in Facebook Ads) or in Google Analytics can be decided upon both when you want to measure the effects of a specific advertising campaign, as well as at the moment when you are just looking for the best promotion methods for your business.
How does a UTM tag look like?
UTM tags look like code fragments that are added to links. They consist of two parts:
- A UTM parameter – you enter it into the link using the fragment “utm_”, and then specify the type of parameter,
- A Variable – you enter it using the “=” sign, and then type the name of the tracked variable.
This didn’t tell you much, did it?
To see in practice what a UTM looks like, you can click on any ad in the Google search engine or on Facebook and analyze the URL in the browser’s address bar.
At first glance, you will notice that the link with UTM will be much longer than the standard URL, because right after the destination address, you will find the UTM parameters of the link.
Alternatively, you can quickly generate your own UTM using the builder below.
Why is it worth using UTM?
UTM is a useful tool for every marketer. Above all, it allows precisely determining where the traffic to the site or blog comes from. What is worth emphasizing, well-constructed UTMs indicate not only from which platform the traffic comes, but exactly which post, article, or button generates it.
In practice, this means easier analysis of site traffic and the ability to select optimal advertising channels as well as run effective campaigns within a specific advertising system.
On the other hand, the consequence of not using UTMs is the lack of knowledge of the exact source that brings users to the site. What does this mean?
The result of lacking UTMs in the destination links of a multi-channel online advertising campaign will be the inability to identify and analyze the most effective traffic sources, draw conclusions, and appropriately plan the budget when optimizing a campaign.
Using UTM on Facebook and in Google Analytics may at first glance remind you of using the latter tool, i.e., the most popular analytics system. However, remember that Google Analytics natively does not fully handle recognizing all traffic sources.
UTM tags thus allow for full precision and reduce situations where you won’t know where the traffic really comes from.
How to use tags well? UTM in practice
Initially, using UTM on Facebook and in Google Analytics may raise concerns. The first ones concern how to use them in practice at all. To dispel these doubts, we must specify where exactly they can be used.
There are many possibilities. You can apply them in PPC campaigns, email campaigns, advertising activities conducted in social media, or in collaboration with influencers.
However, professional marketing most often reaches for UTM in the case of ads in the Meta ecosystem (primarily due to the lack of advanced analytics per se within the Facebook advertising system).
Using the benefits of link tagging is worth combining with good practices developed by marketers. Thanks to this, using this tool will be even more effective, and the subsequent analysis will be much more reliable.
When tagging, it’s worth to remember about:
- Maintaining consistent naming,
- Using precise names and accurately indicating the traffic source,
- Creating a short link, thereby hiding UTM parameters (however, pay attention to ensure that the link shortener does not overwrite your parameters with its own),
- Not showing sensitive data – since the UTM parameter is a fragment of the URL, it is visible in the browser, so it should be constructed in such a way as not to show the user, for example, the campaign billing model or the advertising campaign targeting structure,
- Not repeating the same information in different tags,
- Avoiding uppercase letters, special characters, non-latin characters, and spaces, which – if necessary – can be replaced with an underscore, i.e., “_”,
- Checking the tagged address before starting using it (just paste it into the address bar of the browser and press enter – if we land on the desired destination page, it means everything is in order).
How to create links with UTM paremeters?
Links with UTM parameters can be marked very simply and quickly. You can do this using the official Google creator, which you will find under the name Campaign URL Builder.
The simplest to use, uncomplicated, and intuitive UTM creator, which even amateurs can handle, you will also find on this page, below. Try it now and prepare ready URLs (links) with any tags.
Free UTM tag creator
What do you need to know about UTM parameters?
When creating links with UTM, you must select their parameters. There are five different parameters to choose from, also called tags. They are assigned in any order at the end of the URL address, separated by a question mark. To make it easier for you to choose, below you will find an example UTM scheme with an explanation.
- Campaign source (utm_source): use this parameter to identify the traffic source. It can be the name of a website, newsletter, or social medium.
Example: utm_source=google
- Campaign medium (utm_medium): use this parameter to identify the medium used to share the link and access it. It can be email, social media, cost per click (cpc), or another method.
Example: utm_medium=cpc
- Campaign name (utm_campaign): use this parameter to identify the campaign or promotion associated with your link. It can be a product name, type of sale, contest name, etc.
Example: utm_campaign=summer_sale
- Keyword (utm_term): use this parameter in the case of campaigns in paid search results to track relevant keywords based on ads. This helps determine which keywords translated into a site visit.
Example: utm_term=camping_equipment
- Content (utm_content): use this parameter to determine which link the recipient clicked to go to your site. Use this tag when there are multiple links leading to the same URL, for example in an email or on a landing page with multiple calls to action. This parameter is also used to differentiate ads directing to the same URL. It is commonly used for A/B tests and ads targeting content.
Example: utm_content=cta_bottom
However, remember that in UTMs you can really enter anything. For example, in the “source” parameter you do not necessarily have to provide the source variable. The most important thing is that you know what and where you enter the variables and that you do it consistently.
How to measure links tagged with UTM parameters?
Measuring UTM is a simple task. To familiarize yourself with the parameters, you must open your Google Analytics 4 admin panel, and then follow this path by clicking successively on Reports ➤ Acquisition ➤ Traffic acquisition. Finally, add the dimension Session – source/medium by clicking on the blue plus. Thanks to this, next to the general acquisition channels assigned by Google Analytics, you will also see your own UTM tagging.
It is important that you set source/medium as the primary dimension – this will allow you to discover detailed information about specific users. The data for analysis will appear in columns and will inform about sessions, conversions, revenues. The presented information can be freely filtered, segmented, and used to generate comparisons.
Good luck with tagging, measuring, and analyzing!
