A complete guide to campaign links
What are campaign links?
A campaign link is the URL of your landing page followed by a small snippet of code. They may look like this:
http://www.fancyshop.com/page?utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=january_sale
You might have heard them referred to as marketing codes, campaign codes, CID codes (in Adobe Analytics), UTM codes (in Google Analytics) or query string parameters.
All marketing activity linking visitors to your website (or mobile app) should use this unique tracking code.
Fact: “UTM” stands for “Urchin Tracking Module”. Urchin was the original web analytics product that Google bought from its developers back in 2005. Somehow no one has got round to renaming the code since then!
Why use campaign links?
We want to measure everything in digital, particularly traffic from campaigns.
Web analytics tools, like Google Analytics, Adobe Analytics, Matomo or Piano, can identify where each visitor has come from (the referring domain) but they won’t know what campaign or what creative the visitor clicked on.
Adservers, report well on ad performance, but give a very limited view of the visitors’ path to conversion.
Ad platforms, like Google Ads, Facebook Ads and Linkedin, are similar. And so are email marketing platforms and social media analytics platforms.
This makes it hard to compare performance across campaigns and between channels.
Campaign links make this possible.
Campaign links are like the synapses in a digital brain; little connections from your advertising to your website, transferring data every time they are clicked.
With the demise of cookies and the rise of privacy legislation, there are fewer accurate ways of tracking performance from one platform to another.
Nothing else can track journeys across all types of media - little will get you as close to an end-to-end view of marketing performance.
Why is it so critical to get campaign links right?
If these links have errors in them, you won’t be able to produce a simple campaign report, let alone be able to figure out attribution.
Also the visitor might find themselves landing on a 404 error page or getting quite a different experience to the one you planned.
Campaign links will get the right ad data into your web analytics platform.
Not using campaign codes significantly reduces your ability to understand the performance of your marketing efforts, and could lead to wasted budgets and effort.
What do campaign links answer?
When a visitor makes a purchase, you will know if they came from your latest Instagram ad or the monthly e-mail newsletter.
You will know…
Which campaigns should we spend more on?
Which channel drives the most engaged traffic?
Which email offer generated the most profit?
Which keywords should we spend more on?
What are the demographics of our visitors?
Which marketing drives sales in our top products?
Does visitor behaviour change by campaign?
How to structure campaign links
http://www.fancyshop.com/page?utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=january_sale
Special characters
Notice that ?, = and & form part of the syntax for the campaign code.
We should be careful not to use these characters in our values, or they will confuse Google Analytics.
Using different campaign codes for the same URL
Campaign codes don't alter where a visitor lands – that stays in the landing page URL and your visitors will always be taken to the webpage or app that it specifies.
http://www.fancyshop.com/page?utm_source=solus_email&utm_campaign=january_sale
http://www.fancyshop.com/page?utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=january_sale
http://www.fancyshop.com/page?utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=january_sale
In these examples, you can see the Landing Page URL is the same across all activity and the campaign has also remained the same: january_sale
However, the utm_source parameter has changed because the ad is being run in three different channels: solus emails, Facebook and Twitter.
Note: If you’d used upper- and lower-case characters for the first utm_campaign parameter (e.g. January_Sale), it would have appeared in Google Analytics as a separate campaign. This is a very common mistake, particularly when more than one person is creating campaign links.
Why did the tracking code disappear?
You might notice that the attributes disappear from the URL when a visitor moves beyond the landing page.
It’s fine. The attributes have been captured by Google Analytics and are good not only for that website session but also for return sessions (until the campaign attribution window expires or the user deletes their cookies).
Adding extra campaign parameters
Using multiple parameters means you can capture more information and then compare your marketing in many different ways.
For example, you might wish to compare the performance of the same campaign in different countries, so you might want a Country parameter.
There is no limit on the number of parameters you could use. We know one client who has over 10 parameters but it takes an age to correctly track all the variations of each campaign – not so practical.
There is no limit on the number of characters used in each parameter, but keep them short and meaningful.
In theory, you can use any naming convention, but keep it simple, logical and simple.
It’s best stick to the standard ones below, until you realise you need more.
| Parameter | Shows you… | Example values |
|---|---|---|
| utm_medium | The marketing channel | paid, search, display, email, cpc, poster |
| utm_source | The site or referrer that the user came from | google, facebook, newsletter, tradeshow |
| utm_campaign | The name of the specific promotion or campaign | january_sale, blackfriday |
| utm_content | Different creative treatments | logolink, textlink, imagelink |
| utm_term | The keywords used in paid search | running+shoes, brandterms |
How to use campaign links to track online media
Creating the link
Most people use a UTM spreadsheet to create and track their first links.
If you know how to use VLOOKUP and CONCATENATE, you should be able to get going – one column for each Parameter with a drop-down list of Values for each column.
But spreadsheets have a habit of breaking, particularly if multiple people use them.
Pro tip: Alternatively, you could use a campaign tracking platform, like Uplifter, which does the hard work for you.
Our software is particularly helpful for enterprises trying to manage lots of different campaign links across multiple teams.
Stop managing UTMs in a spreadsheet!
Uplifter gives your team a centralised UTM builder with locked dropdowns, a shared taxonomy, and a full audit trail, so clean data is the default, not the goal.
Try Uplifter for freeDeploying the link
After you've added the creative and the copy, you're ready to place the campaign link into the marketing platform.
This is an example from LinkedIn...
Example of deploying UTM links
The process is similar in other ad platforms, and also for email marketing platforms, like Eloqua and MailChimp.
Just put the full campaign link into the Destination URL field.
Many social media platforms produce short links by default, but there may be times when you need to create one yourself with link shorteners. Uplifter has a link shortener in its platform.
Short-links also give you an independent count of click-throughs, in case you were wondering if Google Analytics was tracking all the visits from a campaign.
Testing the link
Make sure you test the link to make sure the landing page is working.
Unfortunately, this process is usually done in a rush – as a result, many campaigns go live without proper testing.
This is where the data problems multiply.
Alternatively, use Uplifter to automatically test all your links every day.
How to use campaign links to track offline media
Traffic from other marketing sources, like print, can be tracked too.
Setting up redirects
No one wants to put a long campaign link on a billboard poster or any printed advertising.
So, create a page alias in your CMS that redirects to the full campaign link.
For example, you could use this easily memorised URL on your printed media:
fancyshop.com/January
When a visitor types it into their browser, it will redirect them to:
http://www.fancyshop.com/page?utm_source=billboard&utm_campaign=january_sale
Using vanity URLs
A Vanity URL is similar to a redirect, but it is configured through the domain registration provider (like GoDaddy).
You purchase an easy-to-remember domain, like:
Fancyjanuarysale.com
You then tell the domain registrar to redirect it to the full campaign link.
This is particularly useful where your normal domain is hard to remember or easily misspelled.
Unfortunately, neither redirects nor vanity URLs are going to give much granularity, beyond the source and medium.
Creating QR codes
QR codes are a great way of bridging the gap between Print and Digital.
Because you can create a unique QR code - and therefore a unique campaign link - for each type of printed creative, they give much greater granularity of data than Redirects or Vanity URLs.
You can find easy ways of creating single QR codes in browsers like Chrome, but these solutions don’t scale well.
Again, this is where a proper Campaign Tracking platform like Uplifter can help.
Campaign link best practices to improve tracking accuracy
In this final section, we've put together best practice tips from our 15 years of experience building campaign links.
Assign a campaign owner
Designate someone to be accountable for ensuring all campaigns are tracked correctly and for adding new values.
Agree on a campaign tracking taxonomy
Get everyone to agree on a common structure that covers the parameters that they need now, not what they think they might need.
Keep parameter names short
Keep any parameter names under 20 characters.
Keep parameter values short and simple
Choose simple, understandable names to help users interpret the data. They shouldn't need to use a lookup table.
Use unique names for every campaign
Using the same name for two campaigns will combine all traffic into one pot – impossible to separate.
Avoid inappropriate language
Remember, your visitors can see campaign codes in their browser, so avoid using inappropriate words in them!
Use lowercase for all parameters
Never use capitals, so you won’t have split reports when someone accidentally uses upper case.
Use underscores instead of spaces
Spaces could break the code. Use underscores or plus symbols (+) instead.
Use special characters appropriately
Don’t use question marks (?), ampersands (&) and the equals (=) symbols. Other special characters may be interpreted by the browser as code.
Use only the needed parameters
Complete only the necessary fields. Don’t label the term or content fields as 'none' if they are not being used.
Handle redirects properly
If your landing page includes a redirect, add campaign codes to both the original landing page and the redirect page. Otherwise, the original landing page could be picked up as the referrer.
Don't use campaign codes on internal links
If you do, your campaign data will be overwritten. Use internal promotion code parameters for tracking internal links.
Aim for 100% tracked campaigns
Of course, not all traffic will be tracked (someone might put a regular link into a review, for example), but look at any untracked traffic to see if you are missing some campaign links.
That’s it. You now have the knowledge to create and deploy campaign codes successfully.
Remember, good tracking is essential to running great campaigns.
Following the advice in this guide will help you measure your marketing and ultimately make your organisation more successful.
Good luck!
