UTM means Urchin Tracking Module, and Urchin was a fantastic software company recognized by Google in 2005. Moreover, the tracking software they developed is the foundation of modern-day Google Analytics.
That’s not all: UTM plays a significant role in digital marketing.
Suppose you have a digital marketing agency or firm. In that case, UTM parameters can aid you in identifying traffic, and the tags are automatically sent back to the site’s Google Analytics profile.
Here in this article, I’ll let you know what UTM parameters are and why you should use them for your digital marketing business.
What are UTM Parameters? A Brief Explanation
UTM parameters are simply tags that you add to any URL to filter and then identify any web traffic on a pretty granular level.
So, when a user clicks on this URL, your tags are automatically sent back to your website’s Google Analytics profile.
Moreover, these parameters easily allow you to track campaign performance, user behavior, and even traffic referrals.
Let’s say you have shared some blog posts on your social media profiles and now want to check each post’s referral traffic.
In such cases, UTM tags will make each link unique for each social post.
Now, when a user or visitor clicks on those links, the parameters are simply sent to the GA profile, and you’ll easily be able to keep track of the exact number of visitors and users checked on your shared blog posts.
Here’s an example of UTM parameter that’ll help you to get a clear idea:
So, for each social media channel you can have a separate link you share, like:
- www.yourCoolDomain.com/blog/blogarticle/?utm_source=facebook
- www.yourCoolDomain.com/blog/blogarticle/?utm_source=twitter
- www.yourCoolDomain.com/blog/blogarticle/?utm_source=tiktok
Why is Tracking with UTM Parameters so Important?
When you use UTM codes to generate URLs, they quickly let the company’s website analytics program figure out how many visitors reach your site.
Therefore, UTM parameters are pretty helpful for your overall marketing as they let you track traffic and see where visitors are coming from to your business pages.
That’s not all, you can even use UTM codes to know people are interacting with your content.
Plus, if you combine them with a 3rd party tracking tool, like CPV Lab, you can also track your conversions and traffic in one place. In this way, you no longer waste time and money with multiple platforms.
But wait, that’s not all! You can even use UTM codes to know how people are interacting with your content! Cool, right?
How can you do that? Pretty easy.
Let’s say if you had put up a blog and promoted it on different social media channels using links with UTM codes (like I’ve shown you above 😉), so you’ll be able to see which platform is sending the most traffic to the post. You can develop a plan to improve your overall marketing with this information.
But what if you have an affiliate offer you promote on all kinds of social media channels?
For example, if you see that the most traffic to your offer link comes from your Facebook posts, but your link tracker tells you that the most conversions are actually coming from… TikTok? What do you do?
If you have data, you can make decisions! It is as simple as that!
These UTM codes are applicable for contents like:
- Blog posts
- Landing pages
- Banner advertisements
- Social media
How do UTM Parameters help in Digital Marketing?
With different URLs and UTM parameters, you can easily track how well your campaigns and marketing are overall proceeding. UTM parameters aid you in keeping track of your website visits, ad clicks, and even email signups.
You’ll find UTM parameters effective with:
Links to the posts you share on social media
UTMs can effortlessly aid you in figuring out how visitors are finding and searching for you on social media. Moreover, UTM links help you determine which social media site has brought the most traffic to your website.
That’s not all, you can even figure out the posts that help you grab more site visitors.
For instance, you can easily share your links on Facebook through regular posts, group posts, and more. Therefore, for each of these content types, normally you’ll be required to generate a unique UTM link and track it on its own. But what is easier is for you to have all these links setup as landing pages in your CPV Lab Pro campaign and you will share only one link: the Campaign URL provided by your ad tracker. 😉
Providing links to your email newsletters
In your email newsletter, add UTM parameters to every link. This will simply help you in figuring out which content has the most clicks and brings in potential traffic to your website.
You can do this by providing each link in the newsletter with a unique UTM content value. Through this, users will end up on the same landing page, but this time you’ll be able to track which link the visitors have clicked on.
Guest posts links
Now, while dealing with guest posts, you should always add UTM parameters to your site links, especially when posting content on various guest post sites. This can indeed aid you in keeping track of the traffic each of the guest posts brings in.
Through this, you can quickly know whether guest blogging is worth your time or not.
Types of UTM Parameters
There are 5 different types of UTM parameters and you’ll know all the ins and outs of the different types of UTM parameters with a clear and brief explanation:
- utm_campaign: You can use this parameter for something like opening day deals or even the Black Friday sales. For instance, it can be utm_campaign=black_friday_sale.
- utm_term: It aids you in finding the keywords implemented in PPC ads so that you are aware of what people are actually searching for in these advertisements. Any links that come with this specific tag don’t come up very often in natural searches. However, if they do, it could mean there is a problem with your website indexing. For instance, utm_term=running_shoes.
- utm_content: utm_content simply tells you the CTA (call to action) that encouraged visitors to act. For instance, effective CTAs could be: “buy now,” “try demo,” and “click here.”
- utm_medium: This tag will tell you how a visitor got to visit your websites, like through PPC ads, social media, email, a guest blog, or even a brand partnership. This is how it’s done: utm_medium=social.
- utm_source: This will help you figure out where the traffic is actually coming from. Some of the sources can be a search engine, a newsletter, or even a referral from someone. Here’s how you can apply it utm_source=facebook.
Things to Know While Adding UTM Tags to the URLs: Our Experts’ Suggestions
Implementing the proper tags in the right place is one of the challenges that many people encounter. In some cases, you’ll find issues in finding out what your data means, and in the worst-case scenario, you’ll have entirely wrong information that indeed isn’t good news for you.
This is what our experts suggest you do if you want to avoid any such issues:
Don’t give vague tag names
Always ensure that you name your tags in such a way that’ll make the overall report pretty easy to understand. This is because if you put on any vague names, it’ll be pretty challenging to figure out what they actually mean.
Avoid Repetition
Don’t repeat yourself, especially if you want your audience to get as much information as possible without losing track or getting confused. So, only use these tags where it fits and provides the requirement needs.
Never Use Parameters on Internal Links
Our experts always recommend staying away from adding parameters on internal links.
Bottom Line
In short, UTM parameters aid you in perfectly tracking your digital marketing progress. These UTMs become more powerful when paired with conversion-tracking analytics because you can optimize your campaigns based on multiple data.
Piece of advice: Never lose track of your data!