Using UTM parameters to measure campaign success

You’ve got your campaign all ready to go - you just need to figure out how you’re going to track the success of your campaign.

How will you know if the traffic coming to your website is paid or organic? Is email or social a higher revenue-generating channel? If you’re running different versions of the same ad, which is the most effective?

You can track all of these metrics and more using UTM parameters - all you need is access to your website’s Google Analytics account and our UTM Campaign Tagging Template

How UTM tracking works

UTM tracking works by adding snippets of text to the end of the URLs that you share across social media or other mediums such as email, Google Ads etc.

The snippets of text that you add to the URLs are called UTM tags or parameters. Tagging a campaign sends an indication to Google Analytics about where the user is coming from, and what element has been interacted with prior to a user arriving on your website. All these results can then be seen in the Acquisition section of Google Analytics.

To manually tag a campaign, you will need to add the following parameters to the URL of the landing page of your website:

Obligatory - these parameters are compulsory

• utm_source = The origin of the user (facebook, twitter, linkedin, newsletter)
• utm_medium = The method they go through (marketing medium: social, cpc, email)
• utm_campaign = The name of the campaign (product, promo code, or slogan)

Optional

• utm_term= The paid keyword utilised (if applicable)
• utm_content= Used to differentiate similar content, or links within the same ad

The text highlighted below is what the tagged URL would look like

http://www.jellyfish.com/en-gb/training/digital- marketing-courses?utm_campaign=courses&utm_medium= paid_social&utm_source=facebook

How to use our UTM Campaign Tagging Template

1. Visit our UTM Campaign Tagging Template. Make your own copy in Google Drive or download to Excel.
2. Go to the desired page on your website that you want to track and copy the URL.



3. Paste the URL into the first available row in the first column of your copy of the template.



4. Add your URL parameters into the medium, source and campaign name columns. Link-tracking is case-sensitive so make a decision early on as to go for lower or capital case.



5. If you need/want to, add URL parameters to the content or keyword column.
6. Your tracked link will now be available in the Generated URL column. Copy this link and paste it into the relevant platform.

Remember: If you’re planning to post the same link across multiple platforms, make sure you change the source and medium and campaign name as applicable.

How do I track the success of my campaigns?

Once your tagged links are live and start being used, you can see the data in Google Analytics. You do not need to amend any of the settings in Google Analytics to start seeing results. Simply visit the Acquisition section of Google Analytics and select to view the results split by source, medium or by campaign. All your results can be seen in this section.

Here's how UTM tracking can transform your campaigns

Here are some of the many ways you can use UTM tracking to further understand the success of your campaigns.

• Track the success of facebook advertising against organic or earned links
• See how much traffic individual influencers drive when sharing your content
• Track the effectiveness of the same piece of content across all your marketing channels

Learn more about measuring the success of your campaigns by attending one of our Google Analytics, Social Media Strategy or Digital Marketing training courses.