UTM tags (UTM-parameters) are specialized parameters in a URL used by marketers to track advertising campaigns.
UTM stands for Urchin Tracking Module (tracking module from Urchin). It was created by Urchin Software, which Google acquired in 2005.
When connected to Google Analytics or Yandex.Metrica, the data obtained through URL tagging will be sent there.
UTM tags are a convenient and useful tool for traffic analysis: they are actively used in many Yandex.Direct advertising campaigns.
What types of UTM tags are there?
Mandatory tags
This is the minimum set of tags needed to segment the traffic coming to the site.
utm_source
The value of this tag is the source from which the user came to the site.
utm_medium
This tag sends information about the traffic type to the analytics system.
utm_campaign
This tag contains the name or identifier of the advertising campaign.
Optional tags
These are additional tags that allow more traffic information to be sent to the analytics system.
utm_term
Keyword phrase.
utm_content
Advertising campaign content.
When creating UTM tags...
- When creating tags, remember a few simple rules:
- Fill in the mandatory parameters
- Cyrillic words may be distorted
- Don't use uppercase letters
- Separate words with "_" or "-".
- Encoding other than UTF-8 may cause incorrect operation
When should you use UTM tags?
- You're running an ad campaign (AC) and want to know where your users are coming from.
- You want to know the sources of users outside the AC.
- You want to measure the effectiveness of a mailing.
Tags don't affect page load speed
There's a belief that the longer and more complex the "tail" of tags, the slower the page loads. But in reality, UTM tags don't affect page load speed at all. They can affect how the site is displayed, but this is easy to test to avoid unexpected issues later.
Tags negatively impact SEO
From an SEO perspective, any tagged link is a page duplicate. This leads to consequences like search engine penalties.