What Is UTM Tracking? How to Track Your Campaign with UTMs

You’ve just launched a new marketing campaign and are eager to see how it performs.

Your website traffic starts increasing, but when you check your analytics tool—whether it’s Google Analytics or something else—you’re met with an issue.

A large portion of your traffic is classified as "direct" or "unknown".

Seline's simple dashboard — Direct or Unknown traffic.

What does that even mean?

Well, direct traffic essentially means your analytics tool has no idea where the traffic is coming from.

Some of the time, it means visitors could have typed in your website URL directly into a browser. But more often than not, this "direct" traffic results from sources that aren’t being properly tracked. Maybe they clicked on a link from an email, a social media post, or even an offline campaign—yet there’s no clear way of knowing which specific channel brought in these visitors.

This is frustrating for anyone trying to keep track of which sources are bringing in the most traffic to their site because it leaves you guessing. You’re trying to run campaigns across email, paid ads, organic social media, and influencer marketing, but you don’t know which channel is driving conversions. Without this data, it's hard to optimize your strategy or allocate your budget efficiently.

So, how can you solve this problem? How can you accurately track the performance of each channel and each specific campaign? That’s where UTM parameters come in.

UTM parameters allow you to trace exactly where your traffic is coming from, down to the specific campaign, channel, and content type. They’re like little tags that you attach to your URLs to ensure every click tells a story.

Now that you know the challenge, let’s dive into exactly what UTM parameters are and why they are so powerful for your marketing analytics.

What Are UTM Parameters?

UTM parameters (Urchin Tracking Module) are snippets of text that you can add to a URL to help track the performance of online campaigns. Think of them as tags that provide essential details about where your traffic is coming from and why.

When a user clicks a URL with UTM parameters, these tags are sent to your analytics tool, providing detailed insights into the effectiveness of your campaigns.

Without UTM parameters, it’s difficult to know which specific email, social post, or ad led a user to your site. The beauty of UTMs is that they allow you to segment and filter your traffic, so you know exactly which campaign, medium, or source drove that visit.

So how do they work? Let’s break it down.

How Do UTM Parameters Work?

When you append UTM parameters to a URL, you’re essentially labeling it with extra information. Every time someone clicks that link, the information flows into your analytics tool, like Google Analytics, and you can see exactly which campaign or source is responsible for the traffic.

For example, let’s say you’re running an email marketing campaign, a social media campaign, and some paid ads for a new product launch. You’d add different UTM parameters to the links you use in each channel, so you can see which one is driving the most traffic, sales, or conversions

Types of UTM Parameters

Here are the UTM parameters you need to understand:

utm_source: The platform or website where the traffic originated (e.g., Facebook, Google, Newsletter).
utm_medium: The marketing medium (e.g., email, social, CPC for paid ads).
utm_campaign: The specific campaign associated with the link (e.g., "summer_sale" or "product_launch").
utm_term: Often used for paid search campaigns to identify keywords.
utm_content: Useful for differentiating between multiple links pointing to the same URL, like different call-to-action buttons or ad versions.

Example of a Typical URL vs. a URL with UTM Parameters

Let’s say you have a basic URL for your product page:

https://yourwebsite.com/product

If you want to track traffic coming from a Facebook ad for your summer campaign, you’d add UTM parameters like this:

https://yourwebsite.com/product?utm\_source=facebook\&utm\_medium=social\&utm\_campaign=summer\_sale

This UTM-enhanced URL tells your analytics tool that the visitor came from Facebook (source), through a social media post (medium), and that the traffic was part of your summer sales campaign (campaign).

How to Use UTM for Tracking

Now that you understand what UTM parameters are and how they work, let’s dive into how you can actually use them to track the performance of your marketing efforts. UTMs are incredibly versatile and can be applied across a wide variety of channels, helping you pinpoint what’s working and what isn’t. The best part? Once set up, your analytics tool will do the heavy lifting by tracking and reporting on these URLs.

UTM parameters can be applied to nearly any type of campaign. Whether you’re doing SaaS analytics. promoting a product on social media, sending out email newsletters, or analyzing the effectiveness of a paid ad campaign, UTM parameters can help you zero in on what’s driving results.

Here are some ways you can use UTMs to track your marketing performance:

1. Tracking Email Performance:

When sending out email newsletters or promotional campaigns, you can use UTMs to differentiate traffic from various emails. For example, if you're sending two versions of the same email (A/B testing), you can track which version drives more clicks and conversions.

Example UTM: https://yourwebsite.com/product?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=holiday_sale&utm_content=version_A

This URL helps you see that the traffic came from your newsletter, specifically from the holiday sale campaign, and it was version A of the email.

2. Finding the Right Ad Placement:

For paid ad campaigns, especially on platforms like Google Ads or Facebook, UTMs help track which specific ad placement or keyword drove the most traffic.

Example UTM: https://yourwebsite.com/product?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=black_friday_sale&utm_term=running_shoes

Here, you can see the traffic came from a Google paid search ad promoting the Black Friday sale, specifically for the keyword "running shoes."

UTMs can also be used to track the performance of organic or paid social media posts. If you're running a product launch across multiple platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, UTMs help you understand which platform is driving the most traffic or conversions.

Example UTM: https://yourwebsite.com/product?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=product_launch

This will tell you how much traffic came from your Facebook posts versus your Twitter or Instagram content.

4. Measuring Distribution Channels:

If you distribute content across multiple channels (e.g., Medium, LinkedIn, or your blog), UTMs allow you to measure which platform drives the most engaged visitors or leads.

Example UTM: https://yourwebsite.com/blog_post?utm_source=linkedin&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=content_marketing

This URL reveals that the visitor came from your LinkedIn post about content marketing.

5. Measure results from Influencers and Affiliates:

If you're working with influencers or affiliate marketers, UTM tracking ensures you can measure the impact of each partner. You can assign unique UTM parameters to each influencer to understand who is driving the most traffic or conversions.

Example UTM: https://yourwebsite.com/product?utm_source=instagram&utm_medium=influencer&utm_campaign=spring_launch&utm_content=influencer_name

6. Guest Blogging and Content Syndication:

If you’re publishing guest posts on other blogs or syndicating your content on multiple platforms, UTMs will help you track how much traffic each piece is bringing back to your site.

Example UTM: https://yourwebsite.com/resource?utm_source=guest_blog&utm_medium=content_syndication&utm_campaign=seo_guide

This link helps you see how well your guest blog on SEO is performing across different syndication platforms.

By using UTM parameters in these ways, you can gain a granular understanding of where your traffic is coming from, which marketing strategies are working, and where you should allocate more of your budget and resources.

How to Create UTMs

Creating UTM parameters is a straightforward process, but it does require careful planning. You’ll want to maintain consistency in how you name your UTM parameters so that your data stays clean and easy to analyze. Let’s go through the steps of creating UTMs and explore some tools that make this process even simpler.

Step-by-Step Guide to Creating UTMs:

Start with your URL: Identify the URL you want to track. This could be the landing page for a campaign, a product page, or any other part of your website where you want to drive traffic. Example URL: https://yourwebsite.com/product
Determine your UTM parameters: Decide which UTM parameters you’ll use based on what you want to track. You’ll typically use at least three parameters: utm_source, utm_medium, and utm_campaign. You may also want to include utm_term and utm_content if you need more granularity.
Manually add UTM parameters to your URL: You can manually append your UTM parameters to the URL by placing a ? after the base URL, followed by each parameter, separated by an &. Example: https://yourwebsite.com/product?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=summer_sale This URL will now tell your analytics tool that traffic came from a Facebook social post promoting the summer sales campaign.
Check your UTM structure: Make sure the structure of your URL is correct. Always start with a ? before the first UTM parameter and separate additional parameters with &.

Using UTM Generators

Instead of manually creating UTM links, you can use UTM generators to simplify the process. These tools allow you to input your base URL and desired UTM parameters, and they’ll generate a clean, trackable link for you.

Here are a few popular UTM generators:

UTM Best Practices:

Consistency is crucial when naming your UTM parameters. For example, if you write “Facebook” in one UTM and “facebook” in another, they’ll be treated as two different sources in your analytics tool. Standardize capitalization, spelling, and terminology across all your UTMs.
Keep UTM Parameters simple and clear. Avoid making your UTM parameters overly complicated. Use clear, concise words that make it easy to understand what you’re tracking. For example, use “email_newsletter” instead of something long like “weekly_promo_email_for_october.”
Use Hyphens or Underscores for Spaces. URLs can’t contain spaces, so it’s essential to separate words in your UTM parameters with hyphens (-) or underscores (_). Choose one format and stick with it consistently.
Track Only What Matters. While it’s tempting to add every UTM parameter possible, focus only on the details you actually need. Too many parameters can clutter your URLs and make it harder to interpret the data. Stick to utm_source, utm_medium, and utm_campaign for most use cases.
Document Your UTM Strategy. Especially if you’re working with a team, document your UTM naming conventions and guidelines. This helps everyone stay on the same page and ensures consistency across different campaigns and channels.
Avoid Using Personal Data in UTMs. Don’t include personal data (e.g., email addresses or usernames) in your UTM parameters. This could create privacy concerns and even violate regulations like GDPR.
Test your UTMs before deploying them on your campaigns. You don’t want to find how later that you’ve missed essential metrics because you set things up wrongly.

Easily Track Your UTMs with Seline Analytics

While UTM parameters are quite useful for tracking marketing campaign performance, managing and analyzing UTM data across various platforms can quickly become overwhelming.

Tools like Google Analytics, while powerful, often scatter UTM data across different sections of your dashboard. This can make it hard to get a clear, cohesive picture of how your campaigns are performing. The complexity of navigating multiple reports, filtering data, and piecing together insights can easily take a toll on your campaigns.

That’s where Seline steps in.

Seline's UTM sources view. — Seline's UTMs view.

Unlike tools like Google Analytics, Seline is designed with simplicity in mind, making UTM tracking and campaign management incredibly straightforward—even if you’ve never used a UTM before.

Seline takes the scattered data you’d typically find in Google Analytics and organizes it in a way that’s easy to understand, allowing you to understand your campaign performance without much stress.

How Seline Makes UTM Tracking Easier:

Centralized UTM Management: No more bouncing between different dashboards or digging through complicated reports to find UTM data. Seline keeps all of your UTM tracking in one centralized, intuitive space, so you can see at a glance which campaigns are driving traffic and conversions.
Easy-to-Use Interface: Even if you’re new to UTM tracking, Seline’s user-friendly interface makes it easy to manage and analyze your UTM parameters. You don’t need to worry about setting up custom reports or spending hours navigating a complex system—Seline simplifies it all.
No Data Overload: Google Analytics and other major tools can often overwhelm users with too much data, much of which may not even be relevant to your specific goals. Seline focuses on the metrics that matter most, giving you clean, actionable insights into your marketing campaigns.
Privacy-Focused: With data privacy becoming a growing concern, Seline stands out by ensuring your data isn’t collected unnecessarily or shared with third parties. You maintain control over your UTM data, without worrying about privacy compliance issues like with more complex tools.

By simplifying UTM tracking and offering an intuitive dashboard, Seline allows you to make data-driven decisions more easily and optimize your marketing campaigns without unnecessary complexity. Whether you’re running paid ads, social media campaigns, or email marketing, Seline ensures that tracking and managing UTMs is as easy as possible.

Ready to streamline your UTM tracking and take the guesswork out of campaign performance? Sign up for Seline today and see how simple managing UTM tracking can be.