Whether you have an online store, a blog, or a news site, you are probably going to need to run communications campaigns. Google offers a tool that natively allows these campaigns to be tracked within its multiple tools such as Google Analytics, Google Adwords, etc.
We will see together what a UTM is , what it is used for, how to track your campaigns using Google UTMs and how to easily create a UTM.
Contents
- What is UTM?
- How to create a UTM?
- How to track your campaigns on Analytics using UTMs
What is a UTM?
A UTM ( Urchin Tracking Module ) is a tracking system that measures the impact of your “marketing” campaigns. I put marketing in quotes because it can easily be used for a simple exchange of links between two bloggers for example.
A Google UTM is made up of a series of parameters found in a web address (a URL). This suite of parameters is then used by Google Analytics to “sort” visitors into the boxes that look good in your reports.
Concretely, UTMs are particularly practical for measuring the impact of a newsletter or an advertising insert/banner. Indeed, if you put a link in your newsletter that redirects to your site, without UTM, your visitors will be placed in the “direct” acquisition channel since Google Analytics will consider them as direct access to your site (roughly, as if your visitor had to type the address of your website directly into their browser) .
On the contrary, if the links contained in your newsletter contain UTMs, you will be able to follow their trace in Google Analytics and they will be “stored” in the acquisition media indicated by the UTM, therefore email for newsletters!
This is what a Google UTM looks like:
https://constantin-boulanger.fr/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=test_utmYou can see the URL of my homepage tracking URL parameters utm_source, utm_mediumand utm_campaign! I’m sure you’ve already seen this without knowing what it was 🙂
How to create a UTM?
A Google UTM can be made up of 3 to 5 parameters. Indeed, 3 parameters are mandatory, 2 are optional.
Here is the exhaustive list of these parameters:
| Parameter name | Description | Mandatory |
|---|---|---|
utm_source | Use utm_sourceto identify a search engine, the name of a newsletter or other source.Example: google | Yes |
utm_medium | Use utm_mediumto identify medium such as email or cost per click.Example: cpc | Yes |
utm_campaign | Use utm_campaignto identify a specific product promotion or strategic campaign.Example: spring_sale | Yes |
utm_term | Identifies search terms. Example: course+chaussures | No |
utm_content | Identifies precisely what was clicked to bring the user to the site, such as a banner or text link. It is often used for A / B testing and targeted advertising content. Example: utm_content = logolinkor utm_content =textlink | No |
List of parameters to create a UTM
Even if it’s not very complicated, an error can quickly creep in and above all, we clearly have better things to do than generate a Google UTM manually.
In order to help you create UTMs easily, Google has therefore set up a free tool that allows you to generate a complete URL containing the UTM parameters that go well.
This URL will be communicated to your service providers when setting up a marketing campaign or during a link exchange, netlinking or any other and will allow you to follow the people who are brought back to your site from this link / this campaign.
How to track your campaigns on Analytics using UTMs
Now that you know what a UTM is and that you have set up UTMs all over the place, in your newsletters, on your link exchanges, netlinking and company, you can’t wait to follow it all in Google Analytics.
To find your UTM data in Google Analytics, go to analytics.google.com in the Acquisition > Campaigns > All Campaigns tab .
You can wander between the different primary dimensions of Campaign , Source , Medium , and Source / Medium .
For more granularity, the Source / Support ratio is not bad 🙂
In addition, you can also display a secondary dimension before you compare your campaigns and go deeper into the analysis.
That’s all ! Now you know where to find your UTM tracking code data.
