Using UTM parameters is fundamental for digital marketing and social media marketing.
They are a precious piece of a whole series of strategies that can greatly improve the progress of a company or a promotion.
They are widely used in communion with tracking links and the whole tracking management system that allows companies all over the world to effectively analyze the data relating to their contents.
In this article we will carefully explain what UTM Parameters are, how they can be used, what their applications are and which is one of the best tools to generate and manage them.
What are UTM Parameters?
The abbreviation UTM stands for: Urchin Tracking Module and identifies particular parameters within the URLs that are used to track the effectiveness of online campaigns.
These parameters are used especially by marketers, or by people who try to push their business online, on social media or on other platforms.
The analytics tools can retrieve precious information through these simple parameters and this is a very intelligent and comfortable way that has been created precisely for the information tracking
The name “Urchin Tracking Module” clearly indicates the purpose of these parameters: the collection of data through a monitoring system.
The appearance of those Parameters.
Here’s how UTM Parameters are made:
The first part is the original link of any page.
As always we will find https (or http if the page does not support an SSL certificate) + the domain of the url + the extension + the alias of the visited page.
The part highlighted in yellow instead shows the various UTM parameters.
As you can see, within the same link there can be several different UTMs, each one has a specific function and use.
5 types of UTM Parameters.
There are 5 different types of UTM Parameters, here is a very quick list and recap. Use a tracker with an integrated UTM builder.
Campaign Source or utm_source: you can identify the source of your traffic such as newsletter name, a search engine or other source.
Campaign Medium or utm_medium: you can identify the medium such as email or cost-for-click.
Campaign Name or utm_campaign: you can identify a strategic campaign or a specific product promotion.
Campaign Term or utm_term: you can identify keywords for your ad and use this for paid search.
Campaign Content or utm_content: you can use this for AB testing and content-target-ads.
Now we will see in more detail each of these parameters, giving some examples to make the role of each individual UTM even clearer within the URL in which they are inserted.
utm_source
This parameter indicates the site or the platform where users came from.
It shows where the traffic of that URL comes from.
To give you an example: Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, Amazon are all sites that can appear within this utm parameter.
Knowing where users come from is a very important tool for keeping track of your campaigns, especially if you use redirect pixels within your marketing strategies.
utm_medium
This parameter indicates the medium that the URL is using to obtain clicks and to be visited.
A medium can be a: QR Code, an email, a CPC, organic social media posts, etc.
Identifying the medium is quite important, because it makes it clear through which strategy you are trying to promote a particular campaign.
utm_campaign
This parameter indicates which campaign has been associated with the URL.
In this field, the campaign is usually identified by its name, a code name, the sponsored product, or any other element that may be easy for its recognition.
As its name says, the parameter is particularly suitable for all digital marketing campaigns that you have launched online, and on social media.
utm_term
This parameter focuses on the analysis of the terms and words used.
Keywords are used extensively for analytics, and make it clear the type of traffic or the amount of users who are attracted by a certain topic or content.
A UTM Parameter like this can be used to analyze the terms used for the Ads of some social networks such as: Facebook, LinkedIn or Google.
utm_content
This parameter indicates the content that the URL is using to push users to interact.
It is perhaps one of the most important parameters to keep under control.
Users’ reaction to specific content can make it clear how best to manage their campaigns.
A content can be: a video, an ad, a social media post, an email or other types of files.
This parameter is really important because it could offer very relevant user preferences data.
It allows you to understand what type of content can better engage the person.
Many prefer videos, others more willingly click on images shared by social media such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or Pinterest.
This parameter, in a nutshell, makes you understand what type of content is inside the URL and how many clicks and views that content brought you.
Precisely for this reason it is used very often for A / B testing strategies, in order to understand which project is bringing the best results to the campaign.
Where can I use UTMs?
UTMs can be applied to all external links you want to use for your campaigns.
They can be used on Facebook, for Facebook Ads, for Google Ads, they can also be used for email marketing.
It is highly recommended to avoid associating the UTM Parameters with your internal links.
This is because the insertion of these parameters could overwrite the referrer of your URL and risk not sending your users to the right address anymore.
This can lead to a number of problems such as: a confusion in data tracking.
UTMs should not be used to track traffic from your homepage to your blog content – for example.
And they shouldn’t be used to link buttons on your site to other internal pages either.
There are other systems for monitoring that data.
The UTM Parameters were created to focus on external links, to optimize the perception of external traffic and how it behaves according to the different campaigns.
Their main goal is to categorize traffic in your Analytics tools to know exactly where a visitor is coming from.
Use a tracker with an integrated UTM builder.
One of the methods to use UTM Parameters in communion with Google Analytics is to collect all UTMs within a google docs or excel sheet.
However, this procedure is particularly outdated, old and uncomfortable.
The best way to use a UTM parameter is to use a tracker that has easy access to their creation, modification and control.
It’s very convenient to use a tracker that includes a UTM builder, UTM templates, and the ability to customize the parameters instead of an Excel sheet to manage your UTM + Google Analytics campaigns.
Why?
First of all, there is a considerable saving of time to recover the information you need.
An application that deals with URL tracking management MUST be able to provide all the useful tools to monitor every aspect of your links, in order to be decisive for your marketing campaigns.
This reasoning can also be applied to UTM parameters which are fundamental elements for analyzing campaigns.
Having segmented information on different tools makes operations less immediate, affecting the efficiency of the campaign.
Time is money.
For this reason, optimizing every single operation is indispensable especially in an incredibly competitive environment like the digital marketing.
So, in conclusion, it’s much better to use a tracker that contains a UTM Builder already inside it and that allows you to work directly in the application to manage the UTM parameters as you wish.
Make your UTM Parameters with JotURL.
To create and configure your UTM Parameters you will need a platform that can provide you with everything you need.
JotURL is one of the most versatile omnichannel tools that can be found online.In addition to creating tracking links, it offers a long series of additional services such as:
- Branded Link
- Conversion Tracking
- Retargeting Pixels
- Traffic Optimization Tools
- Link Monitoring
- Custom Visual QR Codes
- App Deep Linking & Easy Deep Link
- Link to Whatsapp Chat
- Multi-link into Instagram Bio
- 100% customizable CTAs
- Social Opt-in & Social Opt-in XL
- Webhooks & Zapier Integrations
And obviously a UTM builder & manage service.
A platform of this type is the most suitable for organizing your parameters quickly and easily, having all the tools available to be able to exploit them 100% of their possibilities.
You can associate the UTM parameters with a tracking link during its creation within the Joturl dashboard.
Just create a new tracking link and access the UTM configuration panel to the left of the destination URL.
Alternatively you can access the additional options of Joturl.
And then go inside and enter the builder of the UTM Parameters to have access to even more functions for management and modification.
Here’s how to fill in the parameters:
Campaign Source: Enter the URL of the site from which the most traffic comes. For example, if you want to use this URL for a campaign on Facebook, you will need to insert the link of the platform.
Campaign medium: enter your medium, use an advertising banner or a QR code, simply enter the word “banner” or “QR Code”.
Campaign Name or utm_campaign: you can identify a strategic campaign or a specific product promotion.
Campaign Term or utm_term: you can identify keywords for your ad and use this for paid search.
Campaign Content or utm_content: you can use this for AB testing and content-target-ads.
With JotUrl’s Parameter Builder you can manually add UTM parameters or other different kind of custom parameters, in order to forward them to your destination URL.
To create your own custom parameter you can choose a key and a value associated.
Here are the benefits you can get using the Builder:
- UTM parameters for each of your tracking links
- Custom parameters for each of your tracking links
- UTM templates you can save, search and use again
- UTM views, for each project, in order to manage your UTM campaigns and show up the UTM parameters for all of your tracking links within a specific project.
Furthermore JotURL can activate, upon user’s request, the ability to transfer parameters from the short link to the destination URL.
Joturls engine can transfer the UTM parameters to the destination URL.
All empty UTM parameters are not passed or changed in the destination URL.
UTM parameters without any value are passed as empty parameters that override corresponding parameters in the destination URL.
You will find more information and details on the subject in this article.
One of the greatest strengths of JotURL is that – as already written before – it is possible to observe your data in an organized and simple way.
In fact, by accessing within one’s own projects, it is possible to view each individual UTM field inserted within a URL.
To be able to view these fields, simply click the gear icon at the top, above your projects.
Once this screen is open, select the button: Enable UTM view.
In this way, inside the dashboard you will add new columns to display the data of your UTM.
Conclusions.
In conclusion JotURL is simply the best platform with which to create and manage your UTM Parameters.
You will always have an efficient tracking system at your disposal.
You can view data and analyze the performance of your UTM parameters by obtaining various comparisons with other analysis tools such as Google Analytics and Facebook.
You can organize all your templates in a practical way without having to leave the main application, saving time and finalizing your operations.
All you need for your UTMs and for your new social media campaigns is right here, inside JotURL.
You can discover all its features by visiting the page or taking advantage of the free 14-day trial.
Cheers,
JotURL Team.
PS: Maybe you might be interested in this article! Check it out!
