Has someone asked you to provide data on the performance of a print, digital advertising, email newsletter, or social media campaign? To track traffic and other performance metrics, you can accomplish this request by adding a string of code called UTM tracking parameters at the end of your destination URL.
UTM (Urchin Tracking Module) parameters are URL tags used to help you track the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns in platforms like Google Analytics. By appending these tags to URLs, you can monitor how visitors arrive at your site and which marketing strategies are most successful. Understanding how each parameter works will allow for better campaign performance analysis.
utm_source (Required): Identifies the traffic source (where the traffic is coming from).
Examples:
utm_source=meta
utm_source=google
utm_source=newsletter
Use Case: Helps you pinpoint the platform or website generating traffic to your content. For instance, you may have campaigns running on multiple channels, and tracking utm_source lets you know whether traffic is from Facebook or Google.
utm_medium (Required): Specifies the medium of the campaign, indicating the marketing or advertising medium such as email, cost-per-click (CPC), or banner ads.
Examples:
utm_medium=email
utm_medium=cpc
utm_medium=social
Use Case: The medium helps you categorize your traffic by the type of marketing method. For example, distinguishing between organic social media traffic and paid ads.
utm_campaign (Required): Defines the campaign name to identify a specific product promotion or initiative.
Examples:
utm_campaign=ucm-2425-ug-o-rnbsn
utm_campaign=ohio-news_091924_UCM
Use Case: Campaign tracking lets you evaluate the effectiveness of specific marketing campaigns over time, such as how well your undergraduate online nursing campaign performed or your email newsletter.
Establish a shared naming convention for your entire team to avoid confusion in reporting. Using lowercase and underscores consistently improves clarity (e.g., "utm_campaign=ohio-news" vs. "utm_campaign=OhioNews").
Avoid long or overly complex parameter values. URLs with excessive UTM tags can become unwieldy. If you're driving traffic to a page with a Slate CRM form, Slate cannot track utm parameters that exceed 32 characters including spaces, hyphens, or underscores.
Using UTM parameters within your own site can corrupt your traffic data in Google Analytics, making it seem as if users came from external sources when navigating through internal links. Avoid copy and pasting from emails to collect a link to add to a Drupal webpage. If you have questions, please reach out to UCM.
Use a tracking sheet or UTM generator tool to create and manage UTM links. Google’s Campaign URL Builder is a great tool for generating UTM-tagged URLs without human error. If you need help with generating a excel sheet to track efforts, please reach out to UCM.
Always test the URLs with UTM parameters to ensure they direct users to the correct page and are logged properly in your analytics tool.
When using QR codes in marketing for Ohio University, include UTM parameters to track traffic effectively. For example:
To track UTM parameters in Looker Studio, follow these steps:
Don't see what you're looking for? For advanced dashboard updates, submit a UCM Project Request Form by selecting:
Google offers a free URL builder to help you generate UTM-tagged URLs easily. Visit Google's Campaign URL Builder to start creating tagged URLs for your campaigns.
Create a simple Google Sheets or Excel file where you track all the UTMs you’ve used, ensuring consistency across the team. UCM is happy to help provide a template for your tracking needs. Click the project request form below and navigate to Web < Web Analytics/Dashboard Support Request < UTM Tracking – Email or Marketing Campaign Tracking Assistance.