If you’ve gotten past the basics of Google Analytics sources, mediums, and channels, you’re likely ready to learn about the wild world of UTM coding. Here in my UTM 101 post, I’ll introduce you to the topic and in a later blog, we’ll discuss common mistakes made with UTM coding.
What is UTM Coding: UTM 101
A UTM code is a collection of text added to the end of a url that tracks the source and medium of website traffic. A UTM code can also track other traffic specifics, such as the particular campaign that generated the visit or the specific post that generated the visit.
UTM stands for Urchin Tracking Method. Google purchased the company Urchin in April 2005 to form Google Analytics, which is why Google Analytics and UTM Coding go hand in hand (and why I suggested you read the blog about basic Google Analytics). We see UTM in everyday life, but we don’t often recognize it. An example of a url with utm coding is below:
www.example.comcom?utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=fall-promotion&utm_medium=social&utm_content=100118
In this UTM code, you’ll notice we’re tracking more than just the source and medium mentioned in my previous blog post – we’re also tracking the campaign and the content that brought a user to the website. Your campaign can be as straightforward as your regular marketing campaign. Ad content is an additional parameter that we use in UTM coding to tell which specific piece of content drove traffic.
The Beauty of Ad Content
Ad content is, in my opinion, one of the coolest parts of UTM coding, which is why I’m such a huge proponent of it. Without using the ad content parameter, if you post the same link twice on the same channel, you wouldn’t be able to tell which one drove the traffic to your website when looking at your Google Analytics.
Instead, they would all look like this in Google Analytics:
Without knowing which specific posts drove traffic, your ability to make data-driven decisions about which social posts or emails generated website traffic and key KPIs is very limited. While you may get a certain level of reporting from your social platforms or email marketing program, you’re still limited in knowing how users interacted across channels (for more information on multi-channel attribution, see my blog post here).
Naming Your Ad Content
Because the ad content parameter is your main distinguisher between posts in Google Analytics, it’s important to keep it unique if you’re using the same source and medium. I often suggest you name your ad content based on the content you post.
For example, if you send out a monthly newsletter, it might make sense to name your ad content something like this:
- monthly-newsletter-june
- monthly-newsletter-0617
If you’re posting on a channel multiple times a week, it might be best to put the date as your ad content:
- 010217
- 102117
If you’re posting multiple times a day (such as is the case with Twitter), you may want to add in the time of day or the number of your post
- am-102117
- pm-102117
- 1-102117
- 2-102117
- 3-102117
Notice with each, consistency is key. It will be much easier to analyze data if you can drill down by a common denominator. I like to end all my posts with 19 because I know I can use some regular expressions to easily distinguish it from other ad content (such as PPC ad content which we’ll discuss in another blog post).
Once you’ve met with your marketing team and agreed on the overall campaign (or decided not to attach the post to a campaign at all), determine your source, medium, and ad content. When doing all this, make sure your source and medium match Google’s standard categorizations found here. After you’ve got all your parameters set, plug them into Google’s UTM builder here and shorten it if you like.
Summary
As the need for data-driven decisions increases and the pressure for knowing the ROI of your marketing channels increases, take some time to familiarize yourself with UTM coding. By learning UTM 101, you can make sure you’re delivering content that resonates with your audience and your pocketbook. Also, now that you’ve learned the basics of UTM coding, read part one of UTM coding best practices and follow it up with part two of UTM coding best practices.