What if I told you that there is a way to monitor the behavior of visitors who click on your links for free.
Welcome to the world of UTM’s.
In this post we will talk about what UTM’s are, the basic structure of the UTM code and the value that UTM tracking can bring to you.
//What are UTM’s?
UTM stands for Urchin Tracking Module with Urchin simply being the predecessor to Google Analytics (the service offered by Google that tracks and reports website traffic). Simply put it is just a combination of words and code called parameters that you add to a link (a website address aka a “URL” that you place somewhere for people to click) for the purpose of monitoring the behavior of visitors to that link.
These links can be virtually anywhere, be it on your landing page, emails, social media posts, digital ads or anyplace else you are trying to create engagement. They can be in the form of linked words, buttons, images, etc. and they can link to any URL.
UTM’s are connected to Google Analytics and can tell you a lot about visitor behavior on each link depending on how much you want to know.
Below is an example of a URL with a UTM appended to it, to help you give you an idea of what it looks like (the section highlighted in yellow is the UTM):
The following is a list of parameters you can use:
- Utm_source: where the traffic is coming from. For example it could be from Facebook, Twitter, an email, a registration page, etc.
- Utm_medium: what type of traffic took the person to your link. For example: it could be paid, organic, referral, banner, email, etc.
- Utm_campaign: what the name of your campaign is. For example: “how to build UTM’s webinar,” “summer-sale,” “beginner-tutorial,” etc.
- Utm_term: used to track paid keywords.
- Utm_content: used to create content to help differentiate a link that shares the same URL with another one for example: “summer-sale-red-dress-email-one” and “summer-sale-red-dress-email-two.”
In the example above the source, medium, campaign, term and content parameters were used.
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Once you have added the UTM’s to your links, you’re ready to discover the true value of them!
The next step will be to access Google Analytics. From here you will be able to view the data collected from your links which will help give you an idea of which links are performing well i.e., generating more sales, sign-ups, subscriptions, etc. (whatever your goal is) and which could do better. For example you can find out if your “summer-sale” campaign generated more traffic than your “winter-sale” campaign or whether your “summer-sale-red-dress” link generated more clicks than your “summer-sale-yellow-dress” one.
Below is a brief snapshot of what the Google Analytics UTM tracking interface looks like:
In this first image you can see the campaign parameter where you can view data such as how many users entered a specific campaign in any specified period of time, how many of them were new users, etc.
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//Summary
This type of information can help you to better understand your potential customers and change your content or strategy if necessary.
UTM tracking is a powerful tool that can provide you with tons of insight about your traffic in order to help you grow your business.
In the next post we will be delving more Google Analytics specifically how to view and analyze even more of your website data to increase your traffic. Don’t miss it!
At Graphem we are experts in creating and analyzing email campaigns, UTM’s and Google Analytics and we love helping businesses flourish. Contact us if you have a questions!
