UTM Generator

You’ve probably encountered URLs that look longer than usual, and feature equal signs, underscores, and different values such as source or medium? 

Basically, UTM links are regular links with several pieces of code attached to them. These pieces of code allow marketers to track user clicks better and answer questions like “How many users clicked the link in that insanely expensive sponsored email?” or “Which keyword triggered my ad?” 

Answers to such questions in their turn allow you to build data-driven marketing campaigns and focus on initiatives that are more likely to drive conversions and generate ROI.   

To make a link trackable, a UTM tag is attached to it. The UTM tag starts with the question mark and contains multiple UTM parameters separated by ampersands, as in the following example:

http://example.com/?utm_source=partnersite&utm_medium=blog&utm_campaign=big-promo

There are three mandatory and two optional UTM parameters. Source, medium, and campaign name are always required. In addition, you can track term and content parameters.

utm_source helps marketers track where the visitors came from—it could be a partner website, an app, a newsletter (when this is how users got on your mailing list). Some teams indicate Facebook and Google as traffic sources.

utm_medium stands for the marketing channel that generated user clicks. Values such as social, display, email, cpc, etc are normally indicated as mediums. 

utm_campaign is used to track which campaign the link belongs to. A marketing campaign may be dedicated to a new product launch, seasonal sale, massive promo, or any other marketing effort.

utm_term parameter is directly associated with Google Ads and is supposed to help you identify which keyword triggered the ad featuring your UTM link. While some marketers recommend reserving this parameter solely for Google Ads, others advise using it for other purposes as well, e.g., indicating Facebook headline or email subject line. This parameter is optional.

utm_content is another optional parameter. It comes in handy when the same URL is used multiple times in the same source (e.g. there’s a link to a landing page in the email body and the same email features a button with the same link). The content parameter will help you differentiate between the two links. It is also great for A/B testing. 

To sum up, UTM parameters can help you transform one single URL into dozens of trackable links. When clicked, these links will transmit a plethora of valuable data to your analytics tools. Eventually, you’ll be able to identify all traffic sources in great detail, analyze overall campaign performance and the role of each channel in your marketing mix.

While you can find plenty of recommendations on which values could be indicated as the source, medium, etc, including recommendations by Google, there are no strict conventions. All the pieces of advice leave a lot of room for improvisation, which leads to every team using UTM parameters in their own particular way. Worse, it so happens that different team members may use UTM parameters differently.

Inconsistent UTMs usage makes it harder to interpret analytical data and often leads to marketers misattributing campaign data.

• Discuss with your colleagues which values you’ll be using for various UTM parameters, e.g., that you’ll use influencers as utm_source value and referral as utm_medium for influencers’ posts.
• Remember that Facebook, facebook, and FB are three different values. To avoid erroneous data attribution, develop your own standards, and stick to them.
• Mind the case. To avoid confusion, it is better to use lowercase.
• Use dashes instead of spaces to separate several words in a UTM parameter, e.g., summer-product-launch. Use of spaces is not strictly forbidden—your UTMs would still work. The problem with spaces is that they are turned into hard-to-read code with symbols such as %20.

Social links are not tracked out of the box. To learn which of the social media has more impact on your ROI and to define the type of ads that bring more revenue than others, you’ll need UTM links.

Email link clicks also cannot be properly attributed without UTM tracking. UTM parameters will help you understand which of the email elements encouraged users to click and probably further convert.

While ad vendors normally provide clients with a dashboard, without UTM tracking, you still won’t be able to track conversions. This does not apply to Google Ads, which can sync with your Google Analytics.

If you run an affiliate program, you’ll need to share trackable links with your affiliates, and using UTM parameters is one of the possible options. In this case, UTM links are normally shortened.

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