Do you want to know which type of marketing gives you the best results? Use UTM parameters to find out where to invest your time, money and energy.
Why use UTM parameters?
Let’s say you want to get people to sign up for a webinar. You share a link to a special registration page. You do this in two separate ways:
- A general newsletter
- A personal email
Now you want to see which approach is more successful. That way, you’ll know not to put any more effort into whatever method is least effective.
Google Analytics tells you how many people have visited your landing page in a certain time frame. However, it won’t tell you how those visitors found your website. Did they click on a link in your newsletter or in that personal email?
This is where campaign parameters come into play. They reveal where your website traffic comes from – and how effective your marketing campaigns really are.
What are UTM parameters?
UTM parameters are an extension of a normal web address (URL). They enable Google Analytics to tell different campaigns apart. Other software exists that is able to pick up on these parameters as well. For the purposes of this blog, however, we will assume you are working with Google Analytics on your website.
There are six different parameters you can add to campaign URLs. The first three are usually all you need:
- Campaign Source specifies where the link originates from. For example: ‘Newsletter’, ‘Facebook’ or ‘YouTube’.
- Campaign Medium specifies the marketing medium. For example: ‘E-mail’, ‘Social’ of ‘Affiliates’.
- Campaign Name: give your campaign a specific name. Make sure this name is unique; don’t confuse it with Campaign Source. Naming your campaign “Facebook Ad”, for instance, is not a good idea if you’re running multiple ads on that platform.
A URL with these parameters looks like this:
[URL you want to share]/?utm_source=[Campaign Source]&utm_medium=[Campaign Source]&utm_campaign=[Campaign Name]
UTM parameters: an example
Our own web address is www.green-marketers.com.
One of the ways to reach our website is to click on the signature that appears under our emails. If we’d like to know how many people clicked on that link, we could use the following campaign parameters:
Campaign Source: personal_email
Campaign Medium: email
Campaign Name: personal_email_signature
The URL would look like this:
www.green-marketers.com/?utm_source=personal_email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=personal_email_signature
A free tool for building URLs with UTM parameters
Google offers a free tool you can use to build campaign URLs.
You can find the free tool here: https://ga-dev-tools.appspot.com/campaign-url-builder/
To return to our first example, this is what our campaign URLs would look like for the two different ways to promote our webinar.
https://green-marketers.com/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_webinar
As you can see, campaign parameters add unique information to the URL. Google Analytics registers every page view with these additional data. The source of the page view tells you exactly how visitors end up on your website.
When to use UTM parameters
In our example we used email campaigns to familiarize you with the concept of UTM parameters. However, this tool is not limited to email marketing. In fact, it’s an effective tool for all sorts of marketing efforts.
You could use it to do an A/B test for an advertisement. Or to compare how well the same post does on different social media platforms. Whatever you’re using it for, make sure the long campaign URL is hidden.
By now you’ve got an idea of the potential of this marketing tool. Once you know where to invest your time or money, you can make smarter decisions.
Google Analytics may be blocked
Increasingly, Google Analytics is blocked by internet users. For instance, iOS automatically stops Google from tracking its users. As a result, Google can’t get the information it needs to register page views properly.
Consequently, this method won’t get you 100% accurate results. It will, however, give you a good general sense of what is and isn’t working in your marketing strategy.
Never use personal data in UTM parameters
With great power comes great responsibility.
Never include personal data (such as an email address or a name) in your campaign parameters. The use of personal information requires prior permission. If you log a user’s data in Google Analytics without asking, you will be in violation of data protection law.
Want a better grasp on marketing?
Online marketing is crucial for any business these days. Once you know what works and what doesn’t, you can get to work on a focused strategy.
Considering outside help, or just looking for some advice? Get in touch with us to discuss the possibilities.