UTM coding can quickly go awry if you don’t follow best practices. Consistency and attention to detail can be the difference between an easily analyzed set of data and one that provides no insight at all. Read part 2 on UTM best practices and the different rules to make sure your extra work results in better data.
Have Unique Ad Content When UTM Coding
If you’re going to use ad content to distinguish posts (read my post about ad content and UTM coding here), make sure your ad content is unique on each post. If your ad content is not unique, you will be unable to distinguish between posts, and all your time spent UTM coding will be lost. If you have two posts on the same day on two different channels, you’re in the clear because the source and medium will be your distinguishing factor.
Don’t Use UTM Coding on PPC
UTM coding is super cool, but it’s also pretty limited in the information it passes along. The links automatically generated by AdWords (auto-tagging) on the other hand are extremely complex. When auto-tagging is enabled, Google AdWords passes along a parameter called a gclid (short for Google Click ID). The gclid stores source, medium, campaign, ad group, keyword, and ad creative, just like UTM coding, but it does it automatically.
Additionally (and more importantly), the gclid contains:
- query match type
- hour of day
- keyword positions
- display targeting
- video campaign data
- shopping campaign data
- Ad Group
- AdWords final url
- ad format (text, display, video)
- ad distribution network (Google search)
- placement domain (the domain on the content network where your ads were displayed)
- AdWords Customer ID
The gclid also contains potentially more top-secret information that Google hasn’t told us. (Note: Google changes their mind often. For a complete up to date list, click here: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1733663?hl=en).
Pay Attention to Your Trailing Slash
A trailing slash or a lack of a trailing slash on your initial website url can break your UTM coding. Unfortunately, there’s no absolute rule of whether or not you should use a trailing slash. Trailing slash rules are dictated by your server configuration and server configuration is different for every website. What may seem like a trailing slash to you may actually be something completely different from a development perspective.
My advice to you is that unless you speak fluent server, it’s best to test out your UTM codes for different page types on both mobile and desktop before you post it on the World Wide Web.
Summary
In the words of Monica from Friends “Rules are good! Rules help control the fun!” You can say the same for UTM coding. By following the above UTM best practices, you can be sure that your dive into data is a party for more ROI, not a funeral for your analytics. If you haven’t already, be sure to check out Best Practices for UTM Coding Part 1 here or learn more about why you still need UTM coding even when you have Facebook Insights and email reporting.