What are the different UTM parameters?
UTMs contain parameters: fields that allow you to filter and compare your campaign activity by different dimensions in Google Analytics.
For example, you might only want to see the traffic from one campaign, and split by the different sources - you can do this by filtering on the values in different parameters. It is very important to establish the parameters you need and the values that you are going to use, and make sure that everyone uses them.
There are five standard UTM parameters that Google Analytics recommends using:
| Parameter | What it identifies... | Example values |
|---|---|---|
| utm_source | The place that the ad or post was placed | google, facebook, newsletter, tradeshow |
| utm_medium | The channel that led the user to your website | paid search, display, email, cpc, poster |
| utm_campaign | A specific product promotion or strategic campaign | monthly_newsletter, january_sale, shoes_sale_june |
| utm_term | In Paid Search, use this to identify the keywords for the ad | running+shoes, brandterms |
| utm_content | In content-targeted ads, use this to identify different creatives | video_best_shoes, image_new_shoes |
Sometimes five parameters isn't enough. Advanced users can add custom parameters to the UTM code if they know what they are doing. If you need to do this, you will need a campaign analytics platform like Uplifter.
In Google Analytics, any additional traffic parameters (sometimes called “dimensions”) can be found under Default Channel Grouping.
The values are read by your analytics tool and stored against the parameter.
In the example above, the value for the utm_source is facebook and for the utm_campaign is january_sale.
It is important to establish the values you need to track all your different campaign variations, and make sure that everyone uses the exact same ones.
If they misspell any of the parameters or values, Google Analytics will see this traffic as completely separate from the rest.
It is also important that someone centrally manages requests for new values to be added to the list, otherwise people will invent their own.
