UTM Generator for Campaign Tracking

Urchin Tracking Module (UTM) parameters were first introduced by Google Analytics’ predecessor Urchin and are a widely accepted tool to track the effectiveness of online marketing campaigns. With Pirsch, you can use UTM parameters to break down how many people visited your website and compare the results of your campaigns.

UTM parameters allow you to take a closer look at the origin of your website visitors. Pirsch shows where a visitor comes from by the referrer, but this information is not always passed on by the browser. In addition, only the origin website is listed, but not, for example, on which link on a page was clicked. With the help of UTM parameters, you get precise information about which links were clicked on which page and at the same time improve the reliability of your statistics.

There are five UTM parameters in total. Namely utm_source, utm_medium, utm_campaign, utm_content and utm_term. Typically, the first three parameters are set, and optionally utm_content and utm_term. utm_source specifies the source, such as a website or newsletter. utm_medium contains the medium used for the campaign, such as social media. utm_campaign, as the name suggests, identifies the campaign. Each campaign is usually given a name, such as Summer Sale.

utm_content and utm_term are used less frequently, but can be very useful for finding out what link a visitor followed and what keywords were used. utm_content indicates what part of a page or email was viewed. This can be e.g. the header or footer to identify the area where the link is placed. utm_term is used for search terms. For example, if links are displayed as the result of a search, the search terms can be sent with the campaign.

In general, the values for the parameters can be freely chosen. However, they are case sensitive and no spaces can be used. Alternatively, plus signs can be used, which are automatically converted into spaces by Pirsch. UTM parameters should be used only for inbound links, not for links that link to pages on the same website.

Campaigns can be viewed on the dashboard next to the referrers. The various parameters are divided into tabs and can be linked to each other by clicking on the filters. For example, you can find out which search terms were used to find a campaign by filtering for the campaign and then looking at the UTM Terms. UTM Terms and Content are only displayed when filtering for a campaign, source or medium.