what would digital marketing be without analytics? Precisely, UTM is the solution to the constant headaches of many marketers.
what is UTM? If you are just starting your digital marketing strategy, you should not lose sight of the benefits of UTM codes.
want to know why? I’ll give you a preview. With UTM codes, you will be able to get the most out of your digital marketing campaigns with impeccable web analytics .
So, let’s get to know what UTM is and what it’s for…
Let’s start
index
what is UTM?
what is UTM for?
Benefits of using UTM codes
what are UTM codes?
how to create UTM codes with Google?
Let’s define what UTM is
uTM? what is UTM?
Before we start, it’s good to know what UTM stands for. Its acronym stands for Urchin Traffic Monitor.
Precisely, what UTM offers you is to improve the way you measure your website traffic.
UTM is a Google Analytics tool that uses text codes in small fragments at the end of the URL, in order to track the origin of user visits. This way, you can record the channel through which people have come to your website and know if your marketing efforts are really working.
Now that you know what UTM is, here is an example of what a UTM code looks like to make it easier for you to recognize it.
Everything that appears after the question mark (?) in the URL are the UTM parameters, which I will explain later what they are.
For now, it is important for you to know that when you have the URL with this UTM code, Google Analytics will start measuring your web campaign to generate more web traffic.
Source: Pexels
what is UTM for?
As we know, digital marketing is sustained by a strict monitoring of the indicators of each of the actions that are performed.
However, one of the biggest problems that many marketers had when measuring their efforts on the web was the great difficulty of knowing where users come from.
With UTM codes, this became an incredible tool to measure and know how to calculate website traffic.
A benefit that was very difficult to achieve without UTM codes and now it is easier and simpler.
This is how UTM helps to analyze the effectiveness of digital marketing campaigns and contributes to the increase of traffic and website success. By the way, I recommend you to check out the best digital campaign lessons that will help you a lot in your digital strategy planning and implementation.
Benefits of using UTM codes
Now that you know what UTM is for, aren’t you excited about how much it can help you? I’m sure that since you know what UTM is, you’ve already put it on your to-do list to add to your digital marketing strategy.
If it’s still not clear to you, don’t worry. Here’s a list of the main benefits of UTM codes for your digital marketing campaigns. you’ll keep falling in love with this amazing tool!
Boost analytics systems
Optimizes investment in digital marketing campaigns
Helps you discover what type of content gets the most traffic to your website.
Track specifically how and from where the visits to the web page or landing page come from.
Contributes to the generation of conversions.
Analyzes the effectiveness of shared content and internal links
Assists in decision making for the following actions of the digital marketing strategy
Know to what extent your social networks help to position and promote the content.
Source: Pexels
what are UTM codes?
Now that we know what UTM is, I will teach you how to use UTM codes or parameters. This is necessary for you to know, because, at the moment of creating a URL with UTM code, you have to respond to each of these UTM parameters.
UTM Campaign: utm_campaign
In this UTM code, you put the name of the marketing campaign you are doing for your business or client. In this way, you can group all the content of a campaign for web analytics.
Don’t forget that it is important that you place a name that will help you identify the campaign you are running. Two good ways to assign the name of this UTM parameter is by the date your digital marketing campaign is running such as “February 2021” or with the reason for the campaign such as “launch of X sneakers”.
Example of this UTM code is: utm_campaign=promo_february2021.
UTM Source: utm_source
In the UTM Source, you place the name of the website that drives the URL traffic. For example, it could be Instagram, Facebook or mail.
An example of this UTM code is utm_source=twitter or utm_source=mail.
UTM Medium: utm_medium
This UTM parameter shows the form or medium in which the traffic reaches the users such as banners, pay per click (PPC), status update.
This UTM code can be viewed as follows: utm_medium=profile
UTM Term: utm_term
This is an optional UTM code; that is, you don’t need to answer it, but it helps a lot when you perform an SEM strategy.
The UTM Term is used to identify the paid searches with the keywords on which the campaign wants to rank.
An example of the UTM Term code is: utm_term=positioning_seo
UTM Content: utm_content
Like the UTM Term, this parameter is an optional variable and is used to differentiate between sections of information. For example, to distinguish between a logo, a text link or an image link.
Here is an example of this UTM code: utm_content=logolink
When you put all these parameters together, you will get the complete UTM code for your digital marketing strategy.
Source: Google Analytics
how to create UTM codes with Google?
If you think that creating UTM codes is complicated, you are wrong. It is no big deal when it comes to generating these URLs with UTM.
Google presents a very simple tool that allows you to generate UTM codes quickly. This platform called Google URL creator allows you to add UTM codes to the URLs you want to use for your digital marketing campaign.
To start measuring your progress with web analytics, it is important that you follow the following two steps with Google URL builder.
Login to Google URL builder
In the following image, you can see how the window appears. By the way, Google not only offers you to create URLs with UTM for Google Analytics campaigns, but you also have the option to create URLs for Google Play and iOS campaigns.
In this opportunity, I will only show you the first option, since it is the most used and the one that has the most potential to grow your great digital marketing campaign.
Fill out the Campaign URL Builder form
When you enter the Campaign URL Builder, you will be presented with a form to fill out and then it will generate the UTM code for your URL.
As we know about UTM, there are different UTM parameters that work for different purposes. So, if you forgot what each UTM code is, you can read above about the different types of UTM codes.
Here is an example of the form filled out using the URL of the .
In summary, UTM parameters are one of the great allies of digital marketing to achieve the goals of your business or client. If you use it correctly, the UTM will allow you to check and control the return of your marketing actions and the shortcomings of these.
Remember that optimizing your metrics is a job in which you should put a lot of effort, because it will help you measure the success of your digital marketing strategy.
So, now that you know what UTM is, you have no excuse to optimize your digital marketing campaigns easily and quickly. In addition, I recommend the online course of Master Google Analytics and Digital Analytics, where you will learn the importance of web analytics to determine what aspects work within a brand and thus be able to make the most favorable decisions.