UTM tags – how to create and analyze, pros and cons

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UTM tags – how to create and analyze, pros and cons

Do you know what the spy’s favorite shoes are? Sneakers!

As well as the spies, the marketers who set up the links for the web pages can find users “footprints”, precisely, where did the users come from. 

If your business has a website, it’s important to get a sense of how people are finding your content. One of the primary ways to do that is through UTM tags.

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What are UTM tags?

UTM tags are also known as UTM parameters — or tracking tags — because they help you “track” website traffic from its origin. UTMs are a common way for marketers to learn how visitors are finding their site, and are often associated with tracking.

UTM stands for “Urchin Tracking Module,” which was a Web analytics software product from Urchin Software. Google acquired Urchin in 2005, and the software formed the basis of the present-day product Google Analytics.

Companies that advertise want to know how effective their efforts are at bringing people to their website. One way to measure this effectiveness is to include UTM parameters on the link (whether that link appears in an ad, social media post, or elsewhere). When a user clicks a link with UTM tags, the website records the UTM parameters, and often begins tracking the user as well.

Components of UTM tags

UTM tags consist of key-value pairs added to the end of a URL, typically following a question mark (?). The tags are separated by ampersands (&) and provide valuable data to analytics platforms, allowing marketers to identify the sources of traffic and measure the performance of their campaigns accurately.

There are five UTM parameters: utm_source, utm_medium, utm_campaign, utm_term, utm_content. 

Two of them, utm_term and utm_content are optional, and the rest are mandatory.

Here’s how the UTM parameters are used:

  • Source: It tells you where your traffic comes from. Example values: facebook, twitter, blog, newsletter, etc.
  • Medium: Used to show which marketing channels are bringing the visitor to your site. Example values: cpc, organic_social
  • Campaign: Used to identify which campaign the promotion is associated with. Example values: summer_sale, free_trial
  • Term (optional): Used to manually identify paid keywords you’re targeting with your campaign. Example values: social_media, newyork_cupcakes
  • Content (optional): Used to identify the exact element on your ad or promotion that was clicked. This is often used for optimization purposes. Example values: video_ad, text_ad, blue_banner, green_banner

How to create a UTM?

Creating a UTM is a simple process involving adding specific tags to a URL to track your campaign traffic. Here’s a step-by-step guide to create one:

  1. Define UTM tags: Decide what information you want to track, keeping in mind that UTM parameters must at least include Source, Medium, and Campaign, as explained above. Moreover, you can complement information with Term and Content.
  2. Build the URL with UTM tags: To create a trackable URL, you just need to add the UTM tags to the original link, using a question mark (?) to separate each code and an ampersand (&) symbol to separate additional tags. For example, the URL with UTM parameters would look like this:

example.com/landing-page?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=christmas

In this example, we have:

  • Source: Google;
  • Medium:cpc;
  • Campaign: Christmas.

Lastly, you can use a UTM generator to create your links, without needing to configure the codes manually. Google even offers a free and easy-to-use tool called Campaign URL Builder.

After creating your trackable URL, the tool also allows you to shorten the link so it becomes user-friendly. As it integrates with Bitly, you can even customize this link to suit your needs.

How to analyze UTM results in Google Analytics

As mentioned earlier, analyzing the results generated by your trackable URLs should be done through Google Analytics or another web analytics tool you use. In the case of GA4, the data is available in the Traffic Acquisition tab. When you access this area of the platform, you’ll find a table that shows information on visitor behavior. But to know about specific campaigns, you should select (at the top of the table) options like Session Source/Medium, Session Source, or Session Campaign.

Subsequently, GA4 will update the information, so you can see how many users arrived through the campaign, sessions, engaged sessions, and other metrics that help understand if your action had a positive impact on the project.

Therefore, this step of UTM analysis is crucial for detecting what really works and which campaigns are generating the best return on investment. From this, you can make optimizations that help achieve your marketing goals more easily.

Why UTM tags are important

The advantages of using UTM tags include:

  1. Measuring campaign effectiveness: UTM tags allow you to track the performance of your campaigns and determine which sources are driving the most traffic and conversions.
  2. Improving targeting: UTM tags provide insights into which audience segments are most responsive to your campaigns, allowing you to adjust your targeting for maximum impact.
  3. Integration with analytics tools: UTM tags can be easily integrated with analytics tools such as Google Analytics, allowing you to see all your data in one place.
  4. Easy tracking of unique campaigns: UTM tags can be used to track unique campaigns, such as email, social media, and paid advertising campaigns.
  5. Better understanding of customer journeys: UTM tags provide a complete view of the customer journey, from initial touchpoint to conversion, allowing you to optimize your customer experience and improve your ROI.

Cons of UTM tags

“Cons of UTM tagging” refers to the limitations and drawbacks of using UTM parameters to track website traffic. Some of the key disadvantages of UTM tagging include:

  • Limited accuracy: UTM parameters rely on the visitor clicking on a specific link that contains the UTM tag. If a visitor comes to your site from a different source, the UTM tag will not accurately reflect the source of the traffic.
  • Time-consuming: UTM tagging can be time-consuming, especially if you’re running multiple campaigns or tracking a large number of URLs. It can be easy to make mistakes when creating UTM tags, which can lead to incorrect data in your analytics.
  • Requires regular maintenance: UTM parameters need to be regularly updated and maintained to ensure that they are accurate and up-to-date. This can be a time-consuming task, especially if you’re running multiple campaigns.

Overall, UTM tagging is a powerful tool for tracking website traffic, but it’s not without its limitations. It’s important to weigh the pros and cons of UTM tagging and consider your specific needs and goals before deciding whether it’s the right tracking method for you.

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