UTM Generator

Accurately measure your marketing performance with proper UTM links

e.g. promotion, sale, etc.

e.g. newsletter, twitter, google, etc.

e.g. email, social, cpc, etc.

Keywords for your paid search campaigns

Any call-to-action or headline, e.g. buy-now.

What are UTM links?

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.   

How is a UTM link structured?

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

What are UTM parameters?

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.

Why is it essential to use UTM parameters consistently?

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.

How can you generate UTM links consistently?

  • 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.

Where to Use UTM Parameters?

Social Campaigns

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 Campaigns

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.

Ad Campaigns

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.

Affiliate Campaigns

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.

FAQ

What is a UTM generator?

A UTM generator is a special tool that will help you build a UTM link within minutes. All you need is to fill in the formyour UTM link will be generated automatically, and you’ll be able to copy it in one click.

How do I generate a UTM code?

  1. Start by indicating the website URL you want to track. 
  2. Fill in the fields.
  3. You can also track utm_content and utm_term parameters if necessary. 
  4. A UTM builder will generate your UTM link instantly.
  5. Copy your generated UTM link and use it in your marketing campaign.

Is UTM only for Google Analytics?

While Google Analytics was a UTM pioneer, today many of the popular analytics platforms are capable of detecting UTM parameters. For example, Mixpanel, Kissmetrics, and Amplitude analytics systems all work with UTMs.

Which are the common errors of using UTM parameters?

You need to make sure that your UTM URL contains no more than one question mark ?, and that every parameter starts with one ampersand: “&”. It is also recommended to give preferences to lowercase and dashes to avoid possible errors.

Does the order of the UTM parameter matter?

No, you can add UTM parameters to the URL in any order. Analytics scripts process all the parameters in the order they appear in the URL, but the processing only takes seconds; thus the order makes no difference.

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