13 Excellent Examples Of Google Analytics UTM Tagging You Can Use Too

Tracking and attribution is vital to your online marketing efforts if you have some kind of goal in mind, from building engagement with your online platforms through to generating sales. If you are unable to tell what works from what doesn't you can't make decisions about your online marketing mix to reach your goals.

Of course it is hard to tell what is working and what is not if you are unable to identify which of your promotional efforts are contributing and which ones are not. By default tools like Google Analytics attribute visitors to mediums such as organic search and referring websites. There are limits to what can be tracked based on HTTP referrers.

Tracking URLs and parameters is one way around this problem. Making it possible to attribute traffic originating from outside of a browser, such as clicks from a mail client, or ensuring referring traffic is attributed to paid or promotional activity. As Urchin Tracking Module (UTM) tagging is used by Google Analytics ( URL Builder ), it is the most popular example.

UTM Values

UTM tagging can be used to pass a number of values to Google Analytics. They can be displayed in default and custom reports.

Parameters include source, medium, campaign term (keyword), ad content. Campaign name, source and medium are the only required values.

UTM tagging is simple to use and implement and gives marketers the ability to track different forms of online activity. ( )

One of the most common uses of UTM tracking is as static parameters after a URL:

example.com?utm_source=source
&utm_medium=medium
&utm_term=keywordTerm
&utm_content=adContent
&utm_campaign=campaignName

There are a lot of situations where this will be appropriate.

13 UTM Tagging Use Cases

1. eDM links (event driven marketing)
2. Ad network Display advertising
3. Inbound links placed in Guest Posts
4. Inbound links spread through social media
5. Added to links shared via social sharing widgets from your own sites
6. Tracking inbound links shared through promoted social content
7. Added to links displayed as QR codes
8. Track type-ins either through sub-domain or sub-folder redirects or use with link shorteners.
9. Inbound links placed in Guest Posts
10. Inbound links spread through social media
11. Tracking inbound links shared through promoted social content
12. Added to links displayed as QR codes
13. Inbound in-app links

Dynamic UTM Tagging

Using static values with your UTM tagging would cover most activity, but there are situations where this won't be enough.

One of the most common uses for populating UTM tagging with dynamic values is with non-adwords paid advertising. Some advertising platforms like Bing Adcenter and Adwords (which also provides autotagging, generally a better option than UTM tagging) provides support for a range of query string parameters.

For example to track the keyword that triggered an ad the query string parameter {KeyWord} can be used to provide the value for "utm_term". See here and here.

Establishing a consistent, well documented approach to tagging campaigns across different mediums and sources is as important as implementation to get the most value from campaign attribution.

Consistent naming for different custom sources such as ad networks or mailing lists, and mediums like display and eDM when combined with specific campaign names make it easier to assess performance by campaign and by channels.