Why should you use UTM parameters, and how do you set them?

As an online marketer or website owner, you've probably heard of the term "UTM parameters. But what exactly are UTM parameters and why are they important for your marketing strategy? In this blog article, I'll explain it to you step by step.

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What are UTM parameters?

UTM parameters are small pieces of text that you add to the end of a URL. UTM stands for Urchin Tracking Module, a system originally developed by the company Urchin Software Corporation, which was later acquired by Google. These parameters help you measure the effectiveness of your online marketing campaigns in Google Analytics (GA4).

When a visitor visits your site from a particular platform, such as from facebook.com to your own domain, you want to make sure that your tracking setup can see where that visitor came from. This is because it's important to know where all your visitors are coming from, as this helps you better understand which marketing channels are effective. For example, if you see that many visitors are coming to your site through Facebook, you can invest more money and time in ads or organic content on that platform. Adjusting your marketing strategy based on your collected data will ensure you attract more visitors and achieve more conversions in the long run.

Your own domain's tracking setup is (partially) blind to what a visitor did before they appeared on your site, especially if you use Server-Side Tagging and marketing and analytics platforms no longer have a third-party connection to your domain. If that visitor is already carrying some additional information when they arrive, in the form of URL queries, your tracking setup can automatically see where they came from.

If we compare this to physical visitors in a physical store, it is similar to wearing a name tag. The store's camera can then read exactly for what reason that visitor walked in and what that visitor is doing. This allows you to create a nice overview afterwards of all your visitors and the ways in which they arrived at a store visit. So you can clearly see which marketing communications and campaigns have generated the most and most valuable visitors.

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Why are you using UTM parameters?

Imagine that you use different marketing channels to drive traffic to your website: social media, email campaigns, paid ads, and so on. So how do you know which channel is most effective? This is where UTM parameters come in handy. By adding UTM parameters to your URLs, you can see exactly where your visitors are coming from and through which campaigns.

In addition to having a nice overview of how many visitors came to your site through all the different sources, marketing mediums and campaigns, you also have a nice overview of which sources, marketing mediums and campaigns provided the most successful visitors. This helps you use your marketing budget efficiently and adjust your strategies for better results. Namely, if you see in your Meta Ads that you are getting good results but you see in your GA4 that the conversion rate from paid Meta campaigns is much lower than paid TikTok campaigns, it would be wise to increase your budget for TikTok Ads and decrease your budget for Meta Ads.

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How do you set UTM parameters?

Setting UTM parameters is easy and can be done in a few steps.

1. Select your destination URL. For example, your homepage or a specific landing page. This is the page you want to send visitors to with your campaign or your organic social media post.

2. Add UTM parameters to the URL. There are three different UTM parameters you should/could add to your URL:

utm_source: the source of your traffic (e.g. facebook, google, mailblue).

utm_medium: the medium of your campaign (e.g. paid_social, cpc, email).

utm_campaign: the name of your campaign (e.g., June-2024, lead campaign, newsletter).

3. Combine these UTM parameters and add them to your URL using the symbols "?" and "&". For example:

‍https://www.jouwdomein.nl?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=paid_social&utm_campaign=juni-2024.

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You can also do the above steps online in a tool, we recommend the Campaign URL Builder from Google Analytics. If you enter your URL, source, medium and campaign name in the input fields there, it will automatically generate your URL with UTM parameters.

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Where do you use/place UTM parameters?

You place UTM parameters in the URLs of your marketing communications, such as:

Organic social media posts: Add UTM parameters to the links you share on platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Then enter "organic" as the medium.

Email campaigns: Add UTM parameters to the links in your newsletters and other emails from your campaigns. Enter the name of your email platform as the source, and enter "email" as the medium.

Paid search ads: Use UTM parameters in your ads for search engines such as Google Ads or Bing Ads. Enter the platform name as the source, and enter "cpc" as the medium.

Paid social ads: Use UTM parameters in your campaigns on Facebook, TikTok, Pinterest, Snapchat, etc.. Enter the platform name as the source, and enter "paid_social" as the medium.

You place these URLs with UTM parameters as usual in the input field of your Destination URL or (abbreviated) as a link in your organic social media post.

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Exception for Meta Ads

In Meta Ads, you can add UTM parameters in the wrong place, in fact, there are two different places in a Meta Ads campaign where you can add UTM parameters. This can be directly at/in the destination URL or in the tracking settings. From experience, if you add UTM parameters in the tracking settings (the red arrow in the screenshot below), they will not be recognized. If you add the UTM parameters directly at the destination URL, this is not the case.

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Footnote

It is important to note that UTM parameters do not always give you a perfect picture of all the traffic from all your different platforms. Imagine a visitor visits your website through four different platforms and only converts during the fourth visit. In GA4, you then see this conversion only as coming from the fourth source/medium, while the previous three sessions and their corresponding sources/mediums also played a role in achieving the conversion. This may mean that you don't always have a completely accurate picture of which marketing channels contributed to the final conversion. For a deeper understanding of how conversion attribution works and why it is not possible to get this perfectly in one view within GA4, you can read our other blog article on conversion attribution.

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Conclusion

UTM parameters are an important tool for tracking and analyzing the effectiveness of different marketing campaigns and platforms. If you don't use these parameters (correctly), you won't get accurate insights into where your traffic is coming from and which campaigns are performing best. So use UTM parameters to optimize your marketing efforts and use your budget efficiently.

Are you not yet using UTM parameters because you are still using third-party pixels such as those from Meta or TikTok? Then make sure you switch to Server-Side Tagging so you will have accurate measurements and your website will be AVG-proof again. Looking for more information on what Server-Side Tagging can do for your situation? Then schedule a demo with one of our tracking specialists.

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