What Are UTM Parameters and How Do You Use Them?

UTM parameters are short pieces of text you add to the end of a web link so your analytics tool can tell you where each visitor came from. If you send the same link in an email, a Facebook post and a Google ad, tagging each one lets you see which of the three actually brought people to your site. The tags are free, you can make them in a couple of minutes, and you do not need to be a marketer to use them.

This guide is written for business owners who have never run an ad campaign or hired an search specialist. It explains what the tags are, what each part means, how to build a link, and the mistakes that make the data useless later.

TL;DR

• UTM stands for Urchin Tracking Module. A UTM parameter is a labeled tag added to a link so you can see where a click came from.
• There are five tags. Three matter most: source (where), medium (what type of link) and campaign (which promotion).
• Use them on links you place outside your own website, such as emails, social posts, ads and printed QR codes. Never on links between your own pages.
• Pick lowercase names, keep them consistent, and write every tagged link in a simple spreadsheet.
• You read the results in Google Analytics 4, the free tool from Google that counts website visitors.

What UTM parameters are and what UTM stands for

A web address can carry extra information after a question mark. That extra information is called a URL parameter. URL stands for Uniform Resource Locator, which is just the technical name for a web address. A UTM parameter is one specific kind of parameter that tells your analytics tool where a visit came from.

UTM stands for “Urchin Tracking Module.” The name comes from Urchin, a web analytics product that Google acquired in 2005 and built into Google Analytics. The name is old, but the tags are still the standard way to label campaign traffic.

Here is the plain picture. Without tags, a visit from your newsletter might show up as “direct” or get lumped in with other sources, and you would be guessing. With tags, the visit is labeled “newsletter, email, fall promotion,” and you can count it.

The five UTM parameters, in plain words

Every tag has a name that starts with utm_ and a value that you choose. Here is what each one does, with an example for a Michigan plumbing company.

A few notes on this table:

• Source, medium and campaign are the core three. Google recommends always using these three. If you use nothing else, use those.
• Medium means the type of channel. “cpc” is short for cost per click, the standard label for paid ads. Keep medium broad: Adobe advises using it for the highest-level channel, such as email or social media, rather than a subchannel.
• Term is mostly for paid search. If you run Google Ads, the ad platform can often fill this in for you.
• Content is for testing. Use it when you have two buttons or two images in the same message and want to know which one got the click.

What a tagged link looks like

Take your normal page address, add a question mark, then add each tag as name, equals sign, value. Between tags, put an ampersand (&). The University of Minnesota’s marketing team describes the format the same way: a question mark after the main URL, equal signs between each name and value, and ampersands joining the pairs.

Google’s own help page gives an example for a summer sale email, using the source summer-mailer, the medium email and the campaign summer-sale. Put together with a made-up address, it looks like this:

https://www.example.com/sale?utm_source=summer-mailer&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=summer-sale

The page that opens is the same one visitors always see. The tags are invisible to them. Only your analytics tool reads them.

How to build your first tagged link

1. Decide what you are sending. One link, one place. If the same offer goes in an email and a Facebook post, you need two different tagged links.
2. Pick the page people should land on. Use a page that makes sense for the offer, such as a service page or a booking page.
3. Open a free link builder. Google offers a Campaign URL Builder, and other companies offer similar tools. HubSpot, for example, points marketers to Google’s builder and its own tracking URL builder. You can also type the tags by hand.
4. Fill in source, medium and campaign. Add content or term only if you need them.
5. Copy the finished link and use it in your email, post, ad or printed material.
6. Record it in your spreadsheet (more on that below).
7. Click the link yourself once to make sure the page loads normally.

Examples of UTM tags for a small business

Most owners get stuck on what to type. These examples show the pattern for the places local businesses actually advertise.

A QR code is a square barcode that opens a web page when scanned with a phone camera. Tag the web address before you turn it into a code, and you will see how many people scanned it.

Notice that each row uses a specific source. The Hootsuite team suggests naming the exact platform, such as instagram, instead of a vague word like social, so you can compare platforms with each other.

Where to use UTM tags, and where not to

Use them on links that sit outside your own website and bring people in: emails, social media posts, paid ads, partner or sponsor pages, printed materials with QR codes, and links in directories you control.

Do not use them on links between your own pages. The University of Minnesota guidance explains that internal links can misrepresent your numbers, because each new parameter causes a new session to be counted. A session is one visit to your site. If you tag a button on your home page that leads to your contact page, the tool can end the original visit and start a fresh one labeled with your tag. You would lose track of where that person truly came from.

Also skip tags for ordinary search results. Google Analytics already recognizes traffic from regular search listings without any help.

Naming rules that keep your data clean

This is where most small businesses go wrong, and it is the least exciting part, so it is worth doing once and properly.

• Use lowercase everywhere. Values are case-sensitive. “google” and “Google” are treated as different sources, and your reports will split one channel into two rows.
• No spaces. Use hyphens or underscores instead. Hootsuite recommends underscores or hyphens in campaign names. Pick one style and stay with it.
• Be specific, but short. “fall-furnace-checkup” tells you more than “promo1” six months from now.
• Never put personal details in a tag. No customer names, emails or phone numbers. Tags can show up in reports and in the web address people see.
• Keep a spreadsheet. The University of Minnesota recommends a spreadsheet to generate and track your tagged links, since it works as a history that prevents duplicates and keeps links consistent.

A spreadsheet with five columns is plenty: date, where the link was used, source, medium and campaign, and the full link. Larger organizations add rules of their own. Ohio State, for example, starts every campaign name with a code for the department so campaigns are easy to spot in combined reports. You can borrow the idea by starting each campaign name with the year or the service, such as “2026-furnace-tuneup.”

Common mistakes and how to avoid them

Mixing capital and lowercase letters. Covered above, and the most common problem. Decide on lowercase now.

Tagging links on your own website. It breaks your visit counts. Only tag links that start somewhere else.

Using different names for the same thing. “fb,” “facebook” and “Facebook” end up as three separate lines. Write the approved names at the top of your spreadsheet and copy from there.

Using a vague medium. If everything is labeled “social” or “web,” you cannot tell what worked.

Never checking the results. Tags only help if somebody looks at the report. Put a monthly reminder on your calendar.

Tagging a link that changes later. If you move or delete the page a tagged link points to, every printed flyer and old email with that link sends visitors to an error page. Keep old pages in place or redirect them.

Where to see the results

Your tagged visits appear in Google Analytics 4, the current version of Google’s free analytics tool. The University of Minnesota notes that UTM information appears in the Traffic Acquisition reports. There you can look at each source and campaign and compare more than raw visit counts. Jetpack makes the point that analysis lets you compare sources by engagement and conversions, not just volume. A conversion is simply a visitor doing something you want, like filling out a form or calling.

If Google Analytics 4 is not installed on your site yet, we wrote a walkthrough on setting up Google Analytics 4 on a WordPress website. Tags do nothing until the tool is installed, because there is nothing to read them.

One limit to know about: a link tag records a click, not a phone call. Many local businesses get their best leads by phone. If that is you, read how call tracking for ads connects calls back to the campaign that produced them.

When you do have a few weeks of data, the next question is what to do with it. Our article on testing forms and checkout pages covers how to improve what happens after the click.

Our view: start small and keep it boring

We build websites and handle search and ad work for small businesses around Metro Detroit, and the same pattern shows up again and again. Owners either skip tracking entirely or build a system so complicated that nobody keeps it up.

Here is what we tell people. Tag only the links you pay for or put real effort into: the newsletter, the ad, the postcard. Use three tags. Use lowercase. Write every link in one spreadsheet. That is the whole system, and it is enough to answer the question that matters, which is whether the money and time you spend on a channel is bringing people to your site.

Tags describe the past. They show what happened with a link, and they cannot predict what a campaign will do next. We do not treat any number in a report as a promise, and you should not either. Use it to make the next decision a little less of a guess.

If you run paid ads, tags and your ad account should agree with each other. Our piece on what a small business Google Ads test looks like explains how we think about spending and judging results, without chasing quick wins.

— Eric

When it makes sense to have us set this up

Tagged links are only as good as the website they send people to. If your site is slow, outdated or hard to use on a phone, tracking will just show you that clearly.

Blue Lake Web Design is owner operated by Eric Plotts in Novi, Michigan, and has been since 2011. We serve Metro Detroit and Oakland County. A three page website is $899 and an eight page website is $1,999, and anything larger gets a fixed quote, so you know the cost before we start. There are no contracts. Our typical build takes about two weeks. If you already have a site and want ads or search work, see our Google Ads management page, or call us at (248) 800-1855 and ask a question.

To browse more plain-language guides, visit our web design and search articles.

FAQ

What are the five UTM parameters?

They are source, medium, campaign, term and content, written as utm_source, utm_medium, utm_campaign, utm_term and utm_content. Source, medium and campaign are the ones to use every time. Term and content are optional extras for paid search keywords and for comparing two versions of the same link.

Do UTM parameters cost anything?

No. They are text you add to a link, and free link builders exist for creating them. You do need an analytics tool to read the results, and Google Analytics 4 is free. Any cost comes from the ads or emails you tag, not from the tags.

Can UTM tags hurt my website or my search results?

They do not change what visitors see on the page. The main risk is your own reporting: tags on internal links, or inconsistent names, make your numbers confusing. Use them only on outside links, and keep the naming simple and lowercase.

Should I tag every link I share?

No. Tag links where you want to know the answer to “did this work?” A newsletter, an ad or a postcard deserves a tag. A casual reply to a customer on social media usually does not. Fewer, cleaner tags give you better reports than tagging everything.

Can I use UTM tags for phone calls?

A tag records a web click, so it cannot count a phone call on its own. If calls matter to your business, you need a call tracking setup alongside your tagged links.

Sources

• UTM Meaning and Definition, Brave
• UTM Tracking Guidelines, University of Minnesota
• Campaign Tagging, The Ohio State University
• URL builders: Collect campaign data with custom URLs, Google Analytics Help
• UTM Parameters, Adobe Marketo Measure
• What is UTM tracking? UTM links and the five parameters
• How to Use UTM Parameters to Track Social Media Success, Hootsuite
• UTM Codes: How to Create UTM Tracking URLs, HubSpot
• What is UTM Tracking in Marketing Analytics?, Jetpack

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