How to Use UTMs Correctly Across All Campaigns

UTMs can help you allocate marketing budgets effectively, reducing the risk of wasteful spending. 

How to Use UTMs

When you use UTM best practices, it enhances your ability to measure and optimise your campaigns. Some essential tips include:

Consistent Naming

Establishing and adhering to a standardised naming scheme for UTMs reduces the risk of common mistakes, such as duplicate entries, reporting inconsistencies, and fragmented data. Some common rules include:

• Use predefined terms for each UTM parameter, such as email for email campaigns, social for social media campaigns, etc
• Be uniform in case usage, using either lower-case or upper-case for UTMs and then stick to them
• Make your UTMs descriptive and specific, helping you identify different campaigns quickly and easily
• Use alphanumeric characters and underscores. Avoid special characters that cause issues with URL encoding and data tracking

Avoid Redundancy

Each UTM should provide unique information. Redundant parameters can make your analysis difficult. Avoid using the same value for both source and medium. Rather than using manual UTM creation, that can lead to inconsistencies and errors, use a UTM builder to automate the process, maintaining consistency, while reducing errors.

Custom Parameters

Custom UTM parameters provides granular tracking with deeper insights into your campaigns.

Internal Link Tracking

Do not use UTMs for internal links within your website. They should only be applied to your campaigns. When you add UTMs to your internal links, you may it difficult to track user behaviour accurately.

Using UTM Data Effectively

The goal of UTM tracking is to gain valuable insights that can help you with data-driven decisions on optimising your campaigns. Some best practices for using UTM data effectively, includes:

• Optimise campaigns – examine click through rates, conversions, and revenue for each campaign to determine your effective strategies
• A/B testing – UTMs enable precise tracking on different versions of your campaigns, making it easier to carry out A/B testing
• Performance analysis – UTMs offer granular analysis of campaign performance, helping you understanding which keywords, ad placements, and social media ads are driving the most traffic and conversions
• Improved targeting – detailed information can be gathered regarding your audiences behaviours and preferences, helping you create targeted and personalised campaigns
• Improved reporting and insights – UTMs provide comprehensive insights into your campaign performance.

Conclusion

UTMs, when used correctly, are essential tools, helping you analyse the performance of your campaigns. It provides valuable insights into how your campaigns are performing, assisting with budget allocation, while reducing the risk of wasted spending. If you need help tracking your campaign success with UTMs, the Genie Crawl can assist. Contact us now for a free evaluation and quote.