UTMs, or “urchin tracking modules,” are simple pieces of code that give you valuable information on your marketing efforts. I covered the basics of UTMs, including the information they provide, in a previous YouTube video!
But what about actually using UTMs? How do you create that actual bit of code? And where does the code go? I discuss how to use UTMs and where to find their important data in the blog (and video) below.
Prefer video? We've got you covered!
Five things to remember when creating UTMs
To create a UTM, you add parameters, or pieces of code, to a link you’re using. These parameters will give you specific information about your site traffic, and in turn, your marketing results. You can use UTMs whenever you’re sending traffic to a website that you own.
When it comes to actually creating UTMs, there are five important details to keep in mind.
Case matters
Always make sure that everything is in lowercase when creating your UTMs. Whether something is capitalized will make a big difference!
If you use the same word in lowercase letters once and in capital letters another time, Google Analytics will treat that word as two distinctly different sources — rather than recognizing it as the same source.
If you happen to make this mistake, you can clean up that data in Google Analytics. But save yourself the trouble and create good data from the beginning by paying attention to your letters!
Spacing matters
Spacing matters just as much as your case. You cannot use spaces when creating UTMs. Instead, use a hyphen (-) or an underscore (_). If you have spaces in your link, it will actually break the UTM link.
Consistency matters
One of the biggest challenges you’ll face when using UTMs is the effort they take to make. You need a new UTM for each new link, campaign, or source of yours. It can be a lot to keep all of those UTMs consistent.
But the more consistent you are, the better your data will be! That’s why I personally keep track of my UTMs and ensure consistency in a spreadsheet. I can check my spreadsheet to make sure I’m using the same naming conventions every time I create a new UTM.
For example, my UTMs for my weekly newsletter always look like this:
- source=gmail
- medium=email
- campaign=weekly_newsletter
If I kept my source and medium consistent but used different campaign names for the newsletter, I’d have difficulty tracking changes and conversions in my newsletter traffic.
UTMs are visible
UTMs can be long and awkward looking, so it’s a good idea to use a link shortener if you’re sharing the link within limited space, like in a social media post. Once they’re clicked, anyone can see the full link in the URL bar.
If you don’t mind how the full link looks, you may not think this is important, but it is! Your UTMs can reveal who your target audience is, the demographics for your brand, and other key information to anyone — including your competitors.
Plus, if you use the dynamic UTM creation tool within Facebook Ads Manager, it pulls in the sames of your campaign ad set and ads, and uses those as your UTM parameters. You’ll have a tough time keeping your data consistent and easy to analyze in cases like these.
I recommend using abbreviations in your UTMs that are easy to understand and use consistently, such as “USA” instead of “United States of America.”
Be concise
Last but not least, I encourage you to be concise! You want your UTMs to be descriptive, but you also want them to be as short as possible. UTM links can grow very long.
For example, if you want to use an email subject line for your “term,” don’t use the entire subject line that’s probably 50 characters long. Instead, use a shortened, unique version that helps you identify the email you’re referring to.
How to create UTMs
A great tool for creating your UTMs is the Google Campaign URL Builder which you can find here.
For a full walkthrough on how to use it, please watch the video embedded above!
How to find your data
Now that you know how to create UTMs, you want to view the results, of course!
In Google Analytics
You can find the stored information in Google Analytics. When looking at your Google Analytics dashboard, navigate to Report > Acquisition > Traffic Acquisition.
This is where you can see all your UTM information. You can select a secondary dimension of “campaign” or “keyword”, which will enable you to see three out of your five UTM parameters in one place.
In Google Looker Studio
Let’s say you’re tracking a specific campaign for your upcoming webinar on Twitter. In Google Looker Studio, you can still select the Term and Content, and then see exactly which tweets are leading to conversions.
You can even use dropdowns to get more granular with your data, to see what’s working in driving those webinar registrations…and then replicate them in future tweets.
Where to use UTMs
We just used Twitter as an example of where to implement UTMs to see how marketing for your business is performing. But you can also use UTMs to ensure that you’re not fixing things that aren’t broken!
Imagine that you’ve set up an email welcome sequence to anyone who becomes a lead. Someone subscribes to your newsletter, and they receive emails telling them who you are, what you’re about, what you do, and so on.
With UTM tracking in these emails, you can see which users visit your site from which email — as well as the conversion actions they take once they get to your site. That means you can see which emails are converting and which aren’t. You can spend time working on those non-converting emails, and leave the top-performing ones alone.
In short, you can work more efficiently and avoid wasting time.
Where else can you implement UTMs? Try an evergreen email sequence like your welcome sequence. Or your regular email newsletters. For any kind of email, all you have to do is substitute the entire UTM link for your regular link.
Social media profiles and posts are excellent places to use UTMs as well. You can find out where people are finding your brand and what content they’re responding to most. And if you’re a speaker, you can even create a nice link or QR code that leads audience members to your website or opt-in!
Understand your traffic better with UTMs
The five essential things to remember when creating UTMs include:
- Capitalization. Keep everything lowercase in your UTM!
- Spacing. Use hyphens or underscores instead.
- Consistency. You’ll have better data if you keep your naming conventions consistent.
- Visibility. Remember that people can see what data you’re looking for in your UTMs.
- Conciseness. Be descriptive, but keep UTMs short and sweet.
Once you’ve begun creating UTMs in Google’s campaign builder tool or the URL builder in Google Analytics, you can begin viewing and evaluating your data in your dashboard!
This data will help you determine what’s performing well and what could use improvement. You can then spend time on what needs your attention most, and let your top-performing efforts keep doing their thing. Email sequences, newsletters, social media, events — you have multiple options for implementing UTMs.
Want a cheat sheet to help you make the most of your UTMs? You can grab a copy HERE!
