UTM parameters or Urchin Tracking Module parameters (UTM) are a variant of URL parameters used by marketers to track the effectiveness of online marketing campaigns across traffic sources and publishing media.
Since they were introduced by Google Analytics' predecessor Urchin, UTM parameters are supported out of the box by Google Analytics. After these parameters are passed on to the URL, they are parsed by Google Analytics and used to populate standard and custom analytics reports. Other web analytics tools (e.g. Adobe Analytics) can be customized so they can work with these parameters as well.
The UTM parameters in a URL identify the campaign that refers traffic to a specific website. To define and append the relevant UTM parameters to the appropriate URLs, marketers routinely use simple, spreadsheet-based, or automated UTM builder tools, including the Google Analytics URL Builder for websites.
When a person clicks a link that contains a URL with UTM parameters, the web analytics software of the destination website interprets the parameter information and attributes it to the browser's website session and the sessions after that until the campaign attribution window (by default, 6 months in Google Analytics) has expired.
UTM parameters
There are five different UTM parameters, which may be used in any order:
- The utm_source parameter (required) identifies which site sent the traffic, and is a required parameter. Example: utm_source=Google
- The utm_medium parameter identifies what type of link was used, such as cost per click or email. Example: utm_medium=cpc
- The utm_campaign parameter identifies a specific product promotion or strategic campaign. Example: utm_campaign=spring_sale
- The utm_term parameter identifies search terms. Example: utm_term=running+shoes
- The utm_content parameter identifies what specifically was clicked to bring the user to the site, such as a banner ad or a text link. It is used for A/B testing and content-targeted ads. Examples: utm_content=logolink or utm_content=textlink