UTM Parameter

UTM stands for Urchin Tracking Module. With UTM parameters you have a useful tool at hand when it comes to evaluating your campaigns on the Internet. Because: You can specifically track where the accesses to the content of your website come from. As a result, you can address your target group and your users even more efficiently and precisely. Setting up a UTM campaign is quite simple, because Google has its own tool for this: The Google Analytics Campaign URL Builder.

What does a link with UTM parameters look like?

A URL with UTM parameters is always built up according to a scheme, in the generation of which the Google tool, for example, supports you. A total of five different parameters are available for this purpose. Three UTM parameters must always be filled in, and you can optionally select two more. The correct creation of your link is mandatory so that Google can recognize it. Choose only the necessary parameters for your campaign, so as not to unnecessarily inflate your URL. Also, when creating your parameters, make sure that they are clearly named. This will make it easier for you to evaluate the campaigns later on.

You must always fill in these three parameters for creation:

In addition to the three mandatory parameters mentioned above, you can define the following two values:

In the end, a link with UTM parameters looks like this, for example:

Important!

When creating the link, note that Google distinguishes between upper and lower case here. Thus, utm_medium=email and utm_medium=Email will be played separately in your analytics results.

When is tracking with UTM parameters useful?

Using UTM parameters makes sense for tracking various advertising activities. Your created links can be used in different areas:

UTM parameters at Google Analytics

In principle, Google Ads campaigns are automatically tracked by Google Analytics. All you need to do is link your Google Analytics account to your Google Ads account. You can easily evaluate your UTM parameters in Google Analytics. Go to Acquisition > Campaigns > All campaigns. The previously recorded parameters can be evaluated here in different formats.
You can choose from the following evaluation options:

• Campaign
• Source
• Medium
• Source/Medium

What does Google Analytics collect if no UTM parameters are used?

For some links it makes little sense to define UTM parameters. Especially for internal links, you should refrain from doing so. If no UTM parameter is defined for a link, Google uses three different factors to evaluate how the visitor came to the website.

1. Organic: This criterion shows when the user visits the website through the search engine function result list.
2. Refferal: Here you can see if the visitor comes to you via an external link from another website.
3. Direct: This section displays the traffic that occurs via direct input in the browser, the bookmark function or, for example, via links (without UTM parameters) from newsletters.

With these three output values, you can already read a lot about the usage behavior of your website. However, the targeted evaluation of campaigns will be difficult for you. Since the data cannot be selected more specifically, it will be more difficult for you to see whether your advertising measures are running as planned or need to be optimized. For these purposes, the use of UTM parameters makes sense for you.