How to Use UTM Parameters to Track Everything

In this article, I’ll show you how to do just that. We’ll learn what UTM parameters are, how to generate them, where to use them, and my best practices for making them as effective as possible.

What Are UTM Parameters?
UTM parameters are tags you can add to the end of a URL. You can use the tags alongside an analytics platform like Google Analytics to track how users behave after they’ve clicked on your link.

Here’s how these UTM parameters appear at the end of your URL:
So, what can these snippets of text tell you?

I’ll tell you what you can track in the next section. First, let me tell you one catch associated with them.

UTM parameters are stubborn entities that stick to your links, even when you switch to different networks and mediums.

That means if a visitor picked up your link (tagged with a UTM) from Twitter and shared it on Facebook, everyone else clicking that link would still get counted as a share from Twitter.

According to research conducted by BuzzFeed, content actually spreads across the social web in a branching tree pattern.
That means URLs appended with UTM parameters are going to be picked up and shared across different websites — and that’s going to throw off your UTM tracking.

There’s one potential solution: stripping URLs of UTM codes. You can see how video hosting platform Wistia does this with a piece of code.

But, if this clean URL then gets shared on private social media (think Email, WhatsApp, and Messenger), it appears as direct traffic in your analytics. Again, this is misleading.

With this limitation, I just wanted you to understand that UTMs aren’t the be-all and end-all solution to understanding the performance of your content.

With that said, they sure make it easier to understand the performance of your marketing campaign.

How to Generate URL Parameters With Google’s URL Builder
UTM parameters are a great way to figure out where your traffic is coming from and how users from specific sources of traffic behave on your site. So, is there a systematic way to append them to your URLs?

Fortunately, yes.

Say hello to Google’s URL builder. There are actually three different URL builders to choose from depending on whether you want to track data in Google Analytics, Google Play, or the Apple App Store.

We’ll look at the one inside the Google Analytics help center (looks like the screenshot below) for setting up your URLs.
There are three mandatory form fields you need to complete:

Website URL: The full URL of your website, complete with https://

Campaign Source: The platform (or vendor) where the traffic originates, like Facebook or your email newsletter.
Campaign Medium: You can use this to identify the medium like Cost Per Click (CPC), social media, affiliate, or QR code.
There are also four non-mandatory field names you can choose to complete:

Campaign ID: The ads campaign ID.
Campaign Name: A name to identify your campaign. Like your website or specific product promotion.
Campaign Term: You’ll use this mainly for tracking your keywords during a paid Google Ads campaign. You can also use it in your display ad campaigns to identify aspects of your audience.

Campaign Content: If you’re A/B testing ads, then this is a useful metric that passes details about your ad. You can also use it to differentiate links that point to the same URL.
You can also use the UTM.io Google Chrome extension to create UTMs. It auto-populates the URL and saves your most used terms as presets.
Then, you have to then dig into the secondary dimensions to get to the campaign term and content. So, assuming you’re not working with Google Ads, you may want to fit your details into the three required parameters for easy reporting.

It’s even more complicated to see UTM parameters in GA4. Click on Reports >> Traffic Acquisition to access the correct area. Then click on the blue + icon to add secondary dimensions to aggregated traffic data. You’ll be able to track the following parameters we’ve discussed so far:

Content
Medium
Source
Manual Term
But GA4 lets you go beyond these parameters and create even more should you wish. These include:

Utm_creative_format: the type of creative, like display or video.
Utm_marketing_tactic: the marketing tactic you used, like retargeting
Utm_source_platform: The buying platform that directs traffic, like Search Ads 360

Analytics aside, you should also keep in mind that UTM parameters are case-sensitive. So, if you use Google in one parameter, and google in another, they will be tracked differently. In general, you’ll want to make sure you are using the same parameters for consistency and tracking, especially when it comes to the campaign name. You don’t want to have to look in two separate areas for the same campaign, such as Website and website or Spring Sale and springsale. Figure out a format and stick with it.

UTM Parameter Best Practices
Here are six best practices I recommend you follow to improve the accuracy and effectiveness of your UTM tracking efforts.

1. Create Standard Naming Convention for UTM Parameters
UTM parameters can get very complex, very quickly. But you can avoid a lot of confusion and ensure that your UTMs are reportable if you keep your naming conventions consistent.

First, use dashes over underscores, percentage (representation for spaces inside GA), and plus signs in your URLs. Google algorithm doesn’t penalize you for using them, and they work better — just ask Matt Cutts.

Second, stay consistent with lowercase throughout all of your campaigns. For example,

utm_source=LinkedIn is different from utm_source=linkedin.