Are you running a campaign on social media, AdWords, Outbrain, or a newsletter? Do you use Google Analytics? Then, you should definitely learn more about UTM tracking as it will help you get granular data on the successfulness of your marketing campaigns.
Urchin Tracking Module
UTM is the format used by Google to track your unique URLs.
They allow you "tag" the end of your URLs so that they can be tracked more easily through Google Analytics (or whatever you may use).
To help you understand better, let's use an example.
https://utmcreator.com/best-post-ever/
My post/landing page is my greatest work, and I want to start a campaign promoting it. I start pushing it around on various social media platforms - starting with Twitter and Facebook.
Instead of using the same URL for both promotions, why not create 2 unique ones so that you can easily tell the two apart you in your Analytics? That is the idea behind UTM tracking.
Did you know that adding ? to the end of any URL allows you to put whatever text you want after it? Go ahead and try it in the URL bar above! A single '?' and whatever gibberish you can slam into the keyboard will do.
See? This post loads exactly the same!
That is essentially how UTM tracking works. You can create and send users to a unique URL, but it won't at all affect how they see the content! Even better, Google Analytics will be able to track those unique URLs -individually, providing you with additional insight into your campaign! See the examples here:
https://utmcreator.com/best-post-ever/?utm_source=facebook
https://utmcreator.com/best-post-ever/?utm_source=twitter
You may be asking yourself: doesn't Google Analytics already break things down into sources like that in the Acquisition tab? In short yes.
However, you can chain multiple UTM's together to get more and more specific. Each UTM link in the chain is called parameter.
Once you have a chain of UTMs tracking various parameters, you will have supercharged your Google Analytics! Let's take a look at some of these parameters to show you how you'd do that.
The post you are looking to promote in your campaign.
The platform where the traffic will be coming from. If you are marketing your post on Facebook, for example, the source will "facebook".
I always get medium and source confused. Essentially it's the type of campaign you are running. Is it a CPC campaign? Or is it CPM-based through "paid social"?
An easy one.
For campaigns, certain platforms offer you a way to target different demographics. With the audience parameter, you can get hyper-specific with your campaign when tracking your target audience.
The term UTM will mainly be used for AdWords to track a specific keyword.
For A/B, testing purposes, you can use the content parameter to try out different versions of the same post. For example, if you are using Twitter, you can try "tweet A" vs "tweet B" to see which version performs better.
Think you are ready? Give UTM Creator a try now!
