Tuesday Tech Bytes - Adobe Analytics - Week 2 - Best Practices

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What is UTM Parameter?

• Tagging URLs is a simple and effective way to capture data about your digital marketing efforts. It is the process of adding parameters to the end of URLs that gather and record data. The most used parameters are Urchin Tracking Modules (UTMs), which are supported by Google. There are five main UTMs parameters available: Medium, Source, Campaign, Content, and Term.
• UTM parameters can be added manually to URLs or appended through auto-tagging with certain platforms, such as AdWords. Auto-tagging automates the process of appending parameters to URLs. There is also the option of URL builders to speed up tagging URLs manually. With a URL builder, we can simply specify the values to be used for each parameter and the builder formats the URL for you.

How UTM Parameters work? 

• Let’s look at a typical URL without UTMs:

https://www.adobe.com

• Now, let’s check out a URL with UTMs:

http://www.adobe.com?utm_medium=organic&utm_source=linkedin&utm_campaign=adobe_ca2024&utm_content=ex...

• The second link contains more text. UTM parameters always go after the top-level domain and begin with a question mark. After this, the order of the parameters does not matter, but following a consistent naming convention is advised. Ampersands must be placed between each parameter to separate each UTM.

Standard UTM Parameters

• utm_medium
• utm_source
• utm_campaign
• utm_content
• utm_term

utm_medium 

• Medium identifies the vehicles that you are using to market your company.
• It answers the question: “How are they getting to you?”
• It denotes the highest-level channel.
• Social media, email, organic search, and paid search are all examples of potential medium values.

utm_source

• Source identifies the subchannel that is the source of your traffic.
• It answers the question: “Where is this person coming from?”
• In a social media example, the source of traffic is the social media platform being used.
• In this example, Facebook is the Source Value. Other examples are Twitter and Instagram. If the UTM Medium is Paid Search, on the other hand, the UTM Source could be AdWords or BingAds.

utm_campaign

• Campaign is used to identify a specific marketing campaign.
• It answers the question: “Why are they coming to you?”
• Use this tag to denote the name of the ad campaign as it exists in Google AdWords or Bing Ads, or to indicate the name by which you identify the campaign internally. You can even use this tag to specify other information such as geolocation or ad network type.

utm_content

• Use the UTM Content parameter when you want to track more than one marketing piece existing on a single web page. For example, if you have a “Request a Demo” button and a “Sign Up for Our Weekly Newsletter” button, and wanted to know which one is generating the most traffic, you will name each one and use a UTM Content tag to track them. The name of each piece of “content” is the tag’s value.

utm_term

• Term is like the UTM Content parameter. Term is great for identifying keywords in ads for paid campaigns. If you use the auto-tagging feature, this is done for you. If you are not using your ad platform’s auto-tagging feature, be sure to carefully add all the keywords you would like to track.

UTM Parameters Best Practices and what to consider when building UTM Parameters 

• Try to add UTM tags to all your campaigns in a consistent manner.
• Don’t use spaces. Use dashes or underscores based on complexity and your own specific analytics needs.
• Be consistent with the case. It’s best to use lowercase to avoid any confusion.
• Use the same values every time. For example, if you use twitter, then don’t use tw or Twitter or other variations.
• Use only parameters you need.
• Clearly define your UTM strategy and follow UTM parameters best practices.
• Don’t add any Personally Identifiable Information.