Being a marketer, having the correct information for creating success is essential. Other essentials included having a strategy and tools that can distinguish a marketer from other marketers who say they have the same experience.
Knowing a website’s traffic is crucial to know if a business is growing because as more traffic comes in, the more the chances an e-commerce site can make a conversation on sales. However, knowing where and how the traffic comes from is something that will help markets see the effectiveness of an ad or organic post:
This is where knowing about utm comes in handing when ready reports!
Utm are particular keywords that can be automated or manually inserted into any links and be ready by powerful analytical platforms such as Google Analytics, Facebook, or even Matamo (formerly Piwik).
But what are UTM?
Utm has many meanings; one common one is “Urchin Traffic Monitor,” but I like “Universal Tracking module” because it’s nice, short, and memorable!
A website’s URL with Utm code added will be like this:
myexamplesite com/?utm_source=email
The utm part is after “?”. This code can be added anywhere to track to see where traffic comes from like for example, the example shows the source of the traffic is coming from an email sent out to people.
Besides utm_source, other utms can be added as well, either replacing utm_source or adding after utm_source=email
Another example with the most extended module would be this one:
myexamplesiteofstickers com/?utm_source=button&utm_medium=english&utm_campaign=sticker&utm_id=animal&utm_term=common&utm_content=diecut
Utm_source, Utm_medium, Utm_campaign, Utm_id, Utm_term, Utm_content
Each will be explained below for more information:
Utm_source: The source in the example shows the person brought to the site by a button. Other examples could be links and third-party side like google.
Utm_medium: The medium is helpful to know by knowing which language or type of traffic is coming from. In advertising, CPC is commonly used to show visitors come from paid clicked ads.
Utm_campaign: Stickers are used to show that that person was coming from a sticker product, for example. Other models are like different social networks as well, but utm_source would be better for social networks.
Utm_id: Going off utm_campaigns, utm_id would gather more information about the campaign, such as an animal sticker was clicked on rather than a creative, unknown, or other types of sticker products, for example.
Utm_term: This section is useful primarily for keywords, so every day is used to describe the type of stickers used because the sticker could be rare, limited, or other.
Utm_content: Finally, is utm_content is commonly used for a/b testing for specific ads. Let’s say a company wants customers to go between two ads with different content. A/b testing would have utm_content:ada vs. utm_content:adb
How to add or create utms?
A straightforward way of utms for any website would be manually creating the utm or using a site. Google recommends https://ga-dev-tools.web.app/ga4/campaign-url-builder/ as a method of adding utms to a URL. The website asks first the URL a person wants to add utm, and the rest will be up to the visitor with utm_campaign, utm_medium as the other requirements for a successful utm.
The website describes each utm or parameter on how they can be helpful.
Now the moment of truth!
How to read UTM?
In order to read Utm, a person needs to have access to analytical software. As mentioned earlier, google analytics is a popular choice because it is well known. It connects to advertising software such as google ads which gives more information on ads and utm. Another choice is Matamo, which is not well known, but it is free to install, and it is more privacy-friendly, giving more information.
To read utms on google varies,
One method will be acquired on the left side, overview, all traffic, and source/medium.
Another method is going to acquisition, campaigns, and all campaigns to see custom campaign names.
There is always more to learn about utms, so keep researching to find more information!
