Urchin Tracking Module (UTM) parameters are URL parameters variants (utm_source, utm_medium, utm_campaign, utm_term and utm_content) to track incoming traffic to website, to analyze the effectiveness of internet marketing campaigns.
How UTM parameters are effective
UTM parameters are particularly an open standard for website trackers and analyzers like Google Analytics. Backlinks, link sharing and advertisement are the effective source of a website traffic. Webmasters and online internet marketers curious to find the source of incoming web traffic deeply. The deep drive is achieved with own parameters of a website.
How UTM parameters work
Webmaster or online marketers track the exact source bringing a user and what did the user do later on the website. This may achieved by web analytics manually, through in-house developed tool or with 3rd party tool like Google Analytics.
UTM parameters usage
utm_source is the only required parameter.
utm_source
utm_source provides the website that has sent the traffic. The question arises why not to use referrer response header programmatically like Response.UrlReferrer in ASP.Net or document.referrer in JavaScript or referrer response header value and so on. But this is not always the case. HTML anchor tag like <a href="https://www.pitribe.com" rel="noreferrer"/> will void the referrer strategy. In fact if the user is coming through a link shortener website like Bitly, Cuttly or twitter's t.to, then? If ad is clicked through a smartphone app? In short there are many reasons to make referrer strategy not reliable.
utm_medium
utm_medium categorize the medium within the source e.g., ad, share, tweet, PiTribe and so on This gives the inner side.
utm_campaign
utm_campaign may be the your internally given name to the a marketing campaign e.g. Lockdown-offer.
utm_term
utm_term is the search term that resulted the link e.g. summer+vacation+offer.
utm_content
utm_content is the most specific point of the link reason for incoming traffic. e.g. top-banner or inline-feed.
Order of UTM parameters
Any order works and depends on the preference of webmaster or online marketer but following order I recommend:
utm_campaignutm_mediumutm_sourceutm_contentutm_termLink may look like this:
https://www.pitribe.com/posts?utm_campaign=tech-article&utm_medium=post&utm_source=pitribe.com&utm_content=article
Wisely use UTM parameters
Be organized! This is should be the strategy to use UTM parameters wisely. List down links, to be shared, decide sources and positions etc. where to paste link. This make the use of UTM parameters effective.
Advantages of UTM standards
The usage of an standard is advantage itself. UTM parameters are widely used for Web tracking, web analytics providers, so nothing to adopt and learn in the industry. Google analytics, for instance assist to determine the success of internet marketing campaign as the standard is well used and encouraged and ease in case using API for results.
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