How to Create a UTM Link

In order to implement successful digital marketing, you need to understand the performance of your online campaigns. UTM links, sometimes called UTM codes, are a simple and effective way to add data-driven tracking to your marketing efforts.

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Learn How to Add UTM Tracking to Your Marketing Campaigns

 
 

What is a UTM Link?

UTM, short for Urchin Tracking Module, is a system of parameters that you can add to the end of a URL. These parameters provide valuable information to analytics tools, helping you track the source, medium, campaign, term, and content associated with each link.

Why Should I Use UTM Links?

UTM codes empower you to make data-driven decisions. By allowing you to precisely track the performance of individual links and marketing campaigns, you’ll know which channels and strategies are driving the most traffic, conversions, and revenue. This can help you optimize your marketing strategy, allocate your budget more efficiently, and improve overall campaign performance.

Create a UTM Link in Five Quick Steps

1) Identify Your UTM Parameters

  • Source (utm_source): This field identifies where the traffic is coming from, such as Google, Facebook, or a specific email newsletter.
  • Medium (utm_medium): A required field that categorizes the marketing medium, like email, social media, CPC (Cost-Per-Click), or organic search.
  • Campaign (utm_campaign): Another required field, campaign is the name of your marketing promotion.
  • Term (utm_term): Primarily used for paid search, it specifies the keyword or phrase that triggered the ad.
  • Content (utm_content): This is where you can differentiate your creatives or calls to action. Useful for A/B testing or differentiating between two links within the same campaign.

2) Visit the UTM Code URL Builder

3) Drop in your fields. Keep everything lowercase with no punctuation.

4) Generate your URL and add it your marketing initiatives

It can be helpful to create a spreadsheet to keep track of your campaigns.

5) Test the UTM URL to ensure it works!

Example UTM

Want to see exactly how this could work? Let’s say you are working on marketing at a Med Spa and you are running a summer special on injectables. You create an email campaign in Mailchimp to promote it. You send out several different creatives, including one with an image of a woman smiling on a boat. Your UTM parameters for your email are

  • Source: mailchimp
  • Medium: email
  • Campaign: injectables
  • Term: summer-2023
  • Content: woman smiling on boat

The UTM portion of the URL you will use in your email links will look like:
/utm_source=mailchimp&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=injectables&utm_term=summer-2023&utm_content=woman+smiling+on+boat

When you analyze the traffic on your injectables webpage you will be able to see exactly how many clicks came from this marketing effort with this particular creative.

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