How to use UTM Parameters?

With Linkjoy Link Retargeting, you can easily add & manage all your UTMs tags.

What are UTMs tags?

Many businesses use Google Analytics in their daily operations to know more about the traffic that reach their websites.

Maybe you do that too! And you'd be clever... 🧠

But if you want to know more than just the number of visitors or the country where they come from, you'd need to use UTMs tags.

UTM you said? For the record, UTM stands for “Urchin tracking module”.

Still puzzled? That's normal... 🧩

Basically, UTM tags are little snippets of code that you add in the end of your links. It won't change the destination page but nurture your Google Analytics database.

Each tag consists of two parts: a UTM parameter and its value.

Every time an user reach your website using a link including UTM tags, those information will be collected and displayed in your Google Analytics Dashboard. 📊

It will enable you to track the performances of all your links and see where your traffic is coming from.

🛠 How does it work?

Nothing better than an example to understand!

Suppose, you share a link redirecting to your website on Facebook ads, promoting your Winter sales operation. 🎅

You will have to define your UTM tags so that you will be able to identify the origin of your traffic.

For our example, you should set up your UTM tags as your final links looks like:

https://linkjoy.io?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=paid_social&utm_campaign=winter_sales

Thanks to that UTM code, we'll be able to see (on Google Analytics) how that specific "Winter Sales" campaign performed in comparison with the rest of our paid Facebook traffic.

But you could also check the performance of the Facebook channel compared to the LinkedIn one for the same "Winter sales" campaign. 🧐

As you understood, UTM tags will enable you to isolate variables to get insights on the most efficient ways to drive traffic on your website!

🎫 What are the different UTM parameters?

Wanna go a bit further?

There are 5 different types of UTM parameters that will help you to track your visitors...

(Note that the Source, Medium and Campaigns UTMs are mandatory if you want to have valid data in Google Analytics; the Content and Term UTMs are optional).

1) UTM Campaign

As the name suggests, this will inform you on the efficiency of your different campaigns. You just have to specify in these UTM parameters if the link is shared in your "Winter sales" campaign or inside the "Black Friday" one for instance.

Use "utm_campaign=winter_sales" for links you shared during your Winter Sales campaign.

e.g. : "winter_sales", "black_friday2020", "special_offer", "summer_discount2020", etc.

2) UTM Source

It enlightens the source of your traffic (thanks Captain Obvious... 🐱‍🏍). Does it come from Facebook, LinkedIn or Instagram? That's can be pretty interesting information for you to identify the most efficient channel to use to generate traffic on your website.

Use "utm_source=google" for the links that you share on Google ad for instance.

e.g. : "facebook", "linkedin", "twitter", "quora", "blog", "newsletter", etc.

3) UTM Medium

It answers the question "How is my traffic coming to me?”, differentiating the marketing medium you used to attract this traffic. 🧲

It will mainly help you to distinguish paid traffic with an organic one.

Use "utm_medium=social" for links you shared on social media, or "utm_medium=email" for links you shared inside email campaign.

e.g. : Value can also be: "acquisition", "website", "search", "paid_social", "banner", "cpc", etc.

4) UTM Term

These parameters allow you to track which keyword term a website visitor came from. This will help you to identify the strategic keyword that you should focus on for SEO or SEA. 🧏‍♀️

Use "utm_term=marketing+digital+tips" if those keywords were paid for in paid keyword campaigns.

e.g. : "growth_hacking_tools", "shoes_sport_soccer", etc.

5) UTM Content

Helps to differentiate links or ads from the same source, medium and campaign. It's pretty useful when there are several links redirecting to the same link in the same email or landing page for instance. 🧜‍♀️

Use "utm_content=header" and "utm_content=block_text" to differentiate the traffic 

coming from links localized on a different post of your landing page (here in the header or in a text block).

e.g. : Value can also be: "nav_bar", "ads_top", "footer", etc

As you can see, it's pretty useful as it can provide you a lot of valuable information that can help you to improve your acquisition processes. 🚀

🧙‍♂️ How to properly use UTM tags?

If you want to use UTM tags the right way to know better your visitors, you'll have to follow some guidelines.

Don't worry, it's won't be time-consuming! ⏰

• It's very important to well define the word you use as UTM Tags to have readable data on your Google Analytics dashboard.
• Once you choose your "nomenclature", just stick to it! Beware of the spelling errors so that you can always have the right insight.
• To simplify your UTM tags management, you can use a solution like Linkjoy. You will be able to build link with UTM tags in seconds, to have all your links in the same workspace and to create UTM tags templates (to be more efficient than ever...).

Hope you're now familiar with UTM tag and the way you should set it up! 🧙‍♂️

Step by Step guide for UTM Parameters -

Step 1: Go to Advanced Setting

Step 2: Go to URL Settings

Step 3: In each UTM Parameter relevant to your brand campaign

Step 4: Copy your short URL and share with your audience

Do you have questions or feedback? Please feel free to reach Linkjoy support via chat/ email ([email protected]), or explore Help Center to get information!