UTM parameters: tracking where your visitors come from

Analytics can tell you that a visitor came from "facebook.com" or "email", but not which post, newsletter or campaign. UTM parameters fill that gap by adding labels to your links.

The five parameters

A UTM-tagged link looks like this:

example.com/offer?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=spring_audit

• utm_source: where the traffic comes from, such as newsletter, facebook, linkedin or partner-name.
• utm_medium: the type of channel, such as email, social, paid_social, cpc or referral.
• utm_campaign: the campaign or promotion name, such as spring_audit.
• utm_content (optional): distinguishes links in the same campaign, such as header_button and footer_link, or ad variants.
• utm_term (optional): the keyword, mostly for paid search.

Where to use them

• Links in emails and newsletters
• Social media posts and profile links
• Paid ads on platforms without automatic tagging
• QR codes on print materials
• Links in partner websites, sponsorships and press releases
• Links in your email signature

Naming conventions matter

Analytics treats "Facebook", "facebook" and "fb" as three different sources. Agree a convention:

• Always lowercase
• Use underscores or hyphens consistently
• Keep a fixed list of approved sources and mediums
• Use descriptive campaign names, ideally with a date or quarter

Keep the convention in a shared document or link-builder spreadsheet.

Common mistakes

• Tagging internal links. UTMs on links within your own site restart the session and overwrite the original source. Never do it.
• Inconsistent naming that splits data.
• Using UTMs on links shared broadly, where the tag gets copied into other contexts and pollutes data.
• Forgetting medium values that GA4 recognises in its default channel groups, so traffic lands in "Unassigned".

Reading the results

In GA4, view traffic by session source, medium and campaign, and compare conversions by campaign. Over time you'll see which emails, posts and partnerships actually bring customers.

Our paid advertising and social media teams set up consistent tagging as part of every campaign.