Mastering UTM Tracking for Your Online Campaigns

Tracking the performance of online campaigns is crucial for any business looking to optimise its digital marketing efforts. One of the most powerful tools for doing this is UTM tracking—a simple yet effective way to append tracking parameters to URLs. These parameters allow marketers to monitor how traffic from different sources is behaving, which campaigns are working, and where conversions are coming from.

In this blog post, we’ll dive deep into how UTM URLs work, explain Google’s UTM builder, discuss best practices, and explore how to track even offline campaigns. Whether you’re running ecommerce campaigns, NGOs raising awareness, or service-based businesses, understanding and implementing UTM tracking will help you measure success and make data-driven decisions.

What Are UTM Parameters?

UTM parameters are tags added to the end of a URL to track specific marketing efforts. The most commonly used UTM parameters are:

  • utm_source: Identifies the source of the traffic (e.g., facebook, newsletter).
  • utm_medium: Describes the medium used to deliver the message (e.g., social, email, cpc for paid search).
  • utm_campaign: Denotes the specific campaign or promotion (e.g., summer_sale, new_launch).
  • utm_term (optional): Used for tracking paid search keywords (e.g., running_shoes).
  • utm_content (optional): Used for differentiating similar content or links within the same ad or campaign (e.g., button_link, text_link).

These parameters are added to the end of the URL, and when a user clicks on the link, the information is captured in Google Analytics or any analytics tool that supports UTM tracking.

Using Google’s UTM Builder

Google provides a UTM Builder tool that simplifies the process of creating UTM URLs. It’s an excellent way to ensure consistency in your UTM parameters and avoid errors that could disrupt your data.

You can access the UTM Builder here: Google UTM Builder.

Here’s how to use it:

  1. Enter the website URL: This is the page you want to track (e.g., your landing page URL).
  2. Fill in the UTM parameters:
    • utm_source: For example, facebook, newsletter, google.
    • utm_medium: social, email, cpc, affiliate, etc.
    • utm_campaign: A clear identifier for the campaign, e.g., summer_sale, black_friday_deal, etc.
    • utm_term: Only necessary for paid search campaigns, e.g., running_shoes, fitness_app.
    • utm_content: Used to differentiate similar ads or links, e.g., top_banner, side_ad, red_button_link.
  3. Generate URL: Once you’ve filled in the parameters, the builder will generate a URL with all the UTM tags appended to it.

For example, a URL with UTM parameters could look like this:

https://www.keferboeck.com/articles/mastering-utm-tracking-for-your-online-campaigns?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=summer_sale&utm_content=button_link

This URL tells you that the traffic came from a Facebook social ad campaign specifically designed for a summer sale.

Setting Up Your Own UTM Parameters

While Google’s UTM builder is useful, you can also set up your own UTM parameters if you prefer more control over naming conventions. However, consistency is key. By developing a clear naming structure for your UTM parameters, you’ll avoid confusion and errors down the line.

For instance, ensure that:

  • You use consistent naming for sources and mediums across campaigns (e.g., always use facebook instead of mixing it with fb or fb_ads).
  • You adopt a standardised approach for campaigns (e.g., if you’re using seasonal_sale in one campaign, make sure to keep the same naming convention across future campaigns).

How UTM Parameters Work in Google Analytics

When users click on UTM-tagged links, the data is sent to Google Analytics. Here’s how you can access and use this data:

  1. Login to Google Analytics.
  2. Go to Acquisition > Campaigns > All Campaigns.
  3. You’ll see a list of all your campaigns, and each campaign is tracked based on the UTM parameters you’ve set. You can see metrics like sessions, bounce rate, conversion rate, etc., associated with each source/medium/campaign.

Processing UTM Data with Google BigQuery

If you’re using Google BigQuery for more advanced data analysis, you can easily process UTM parameters to track the performance of your campaigns. Here’s how you can pull UTM data into BigQuery:

  1. Set up Google Analytics 360 to link with BigQuery (this feature is available in the premium version of Google Analytics).
  2. Once connected, you can query your UTM parameters stored in BigQuery and run SQL queries to analyse the performance of your campaigns across various sources and mediums.

For example, you can run the following query to get a breakdown of sessions by utm_source and utm_campaign:

SELECT
  traffic_source.source AS source,
  traffic_source.campaign AS campaign,
  COUNT(*) AS sessions
FROM
  `your_project.your_dataset.ga_sessions_*`
WHERE
  _TABLE_SUFFIX BETWEEN '20210101' AND '20210131'
GROUP BY
  source, campaign
ORDER BY
  sessions DESC;

This query will return the number of sessions for each campaign and source combination in January 2021.

Best Practices for Using UTM Parameters

To ensure accurate tracking and data integrity, follow these best practices:

  1. Be Consistent: Use a standard naming convention for your UTM parameters. This will ensure that your data is clean and easy to analyse.
  2. Keep URLs Short: While you can add as many parameters as you like, don’t make URLs unnecessarily long. Stick to the essentials.
  3. Track All Campaigns: Ensure that every marketing link (even if it’s in an email or ad) has UTM parameters attached to track the performance.
  4. Test Your Links: Before launching a campaign, test your UTM links to make sure they’re correctly capturing data in Google Analytics.

Common Pitfalls to Avoid

  1. Misspelled UTM Parameters: Small typos can result in miscategorised data. For example, using utm_medium instead of utm_medium can break your campaign tracking.
  2. Inconsistent Naming: Using different names for the same source or campaign (e.g., newsletter vs email_campaign) can lead to fragmented data.
  3. Missing UTM Parameters: Forgetting to add essential parameters, such as utm_source or utm_campaign, will leave key data gaps.

UTM Tracking for Ecommerce, NGOs, and More

Let’s take a look at a few industry-specific examples:

Ecommerce Example

For an ecommerce store running a Black Friday sale on Google Ads, your UTM link might look like:

https://www.yourstore.com/black-friday?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=black_friday_sale&utm_content=ad1

You can then track how well the campaign performs, how many purchases came from the ad, and adjust your bidding strategy based on that data.

NGO Example

For an NGO running a fundraising campaign through an email newsletter, you might use the following UTM parameters:

https://www.charity.org/donate?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=year_end_appeal&utm_content=donate_button

This allows you to track how many people donated via the email campaign and whether your appeals were successful.

Tracking Offline Campaigns with UTM Parameters

Even offline marketing materials like brochures, posters, or flyers can be tracked through QR codes or short URLs containing UTM parameters. For example:

  • A brochure could include a QR code that, when scanned, directs the user to a landing page with UTM parameters like utm_source=brochure&utm_medium=offline&utm_campaign=holiday_promo.
  • A poster with a call-to-action to visit a website could contain a unique URL with embedded UTM parameters for tracking.

By printing QR codes or custom short URLs with UTM parameters, you can track the success of offline campaigns just like you would online campaigns.

Conclusion

UTM tracking is a powerful tool for tracking the performance of your online marketing campaigns. By using tools like Google’s UTM Builder and following best practices for consistency, you can gather actionable data that helps optimise your marketing efforts. Whether you’re running ecommerce ads, sending NGO fundraising emails, or promoting your business offline, UTM parameters allow you to track, analyse, and improve every aspect of your campaigns.

By maintaining a consistent strategy and monitoring results in Google Analytics or BigQuery, you can ensure that your marketing campaigns are always performing at their best, and adjust your strategy based on data-driven insights.