Track Digital Marketing Results Through UTM Codes

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As a marketer, it’s really important to understand your website’s social referrals. With differing figures between social media platforms and some ambiguity in Google Analytics, it’s time to implement something that tracks social traffic accurately, the specific post or campaign it came from, and what the user did when they got to the site.

Google Analytics can interpret codes in the form of UTM tracking. UTM codes are a sequence of variables that can be added to incoming URLs which are understood by GA and can be reported on within the GA dashboard. This allows us to track multiple links on different platforms and channels and compare performance easily as there are many different types of marketing such as the 6 sheet posters types of advertising you can see online.

WHAT CAN I TRACK THOUGH UTM TRACKING?

For example, if you use these UTM codes/links in your Twitter posts, at the end of the month for each post you can clearly see:

  • Sessions
  • % New Sessions
  • New Users
  • Bounce Rate
  • Average Session Duration
  • Conversion Rate

All of this information is extremely valuable in understanding what your online marketing means and how the audience is reacting to your content and advertising. By implementing A/B testing with different copy, ads, and media, you can really dig deep into the success of each post to see which performs best. This allows us to optimise budgets and maximise results.

HOW DO YOU CREATE A UTM PARAMETER?

There are 5 parameters you can add to your URLs:

Website URL: where you are directing the traffic.

utm_source: this tag refers to where your link appears, for example, Google, newsletter, Facebook, Instagram.

utm_medium: this is how your ad appears, for example, Facebook, CPC, email.

utm_campaign: the name of your campaign, a group of ads through various mediums. For example “Blog Post” – banners, social posts, newsletter.

utm_term: the paid ad keyword, this will also appear as “Keyword” within Google Analytics report.

utm_content: this is used for differentiating your tracking, and great for A/B testing!

Remember – you must always ensure that all fields when creating your code are consistent. For example, the following variations would create three separate campaigns:

utm_name=promotion

utm_name=Promotion

utm_name=PROMOTION

WHAT DOES A UTM LOOK LIKE?

Here’s an example of a UTM code

https://www.cliffordlin.com
 utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&
 utm_campaign=year_end_offer
 &utm_content=50%_off

Website URL: https://www.cliffordlin.com

utm_source: facebook

utm_medium: social

utm_campaign: year_end_offer

utm_content: 50%_off

HOW DO I CREATE A UTM LINK FOR MY CAMPAIGN?

To create UTM links, you will need to visit the Google Analytics URL builder.

This post should have provided a basic outline of what UTM codes are, how they work and how to create them.

Cliff Lin

Cliff Lin

Internet Marketer
Cliff is an Internet Marketing guru with extensive experience in ecommerce and internet marketing roles. He has solid small business background, successful ecommerce experience, and internet marketing expertise. He is capable of implementing the latest interactive marketing tools for company, as well as backend information systems to maximize efficiency.