{"id":193,"date":"2015-07-28T14:25:12","date_gmt":"2015-07-28T11:25:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chatra.io\/blog\/?p=193"},"modified":"2020-06-03T18:10:00","modified_gmt":"2020-06-03T15:10:00","slug":"utm-codes-101","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chatra.com\/blog\/utm-codes-101\/","title":{"rendered":"UTM Coding 101 (plus your UTM Cheatsheet)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Here at Chatra, we\u2019re always looking for ways to measure the effectiveness of our marketing efforts. Every visitor\u2014in one way or another\u2014costs time and money, so it&#8217;s important for us to understand how much we spend and how much we\u2019ve gained. I\u2019m sure that&#8217;s important for you too.<\/p>\n<p>UTM coding is one of the most common ways of seeing what advertising channel brought a visitor to your website so you can analyze it and see the effectiveness of different ad campaigns.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/chatra.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/ga1.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-209\" src=\"http:\/\/chatra.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/ga1.png\" alt=\"ga\" width=\"779\" height=\"347\" srcset=\"https:\/\/chatra.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/ga1.png 779w, https:\/\/chatra.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/ga1-300x134.png 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 779px) 100vw, 779px\" \/><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/chatra.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/ga.png\"><br \/>\n<\/a><em>This screenshot of Google Analytics shows us Chatra visitors who came from 3 advertising campaigns.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Technically speaking, a UTM is a simple combination of variables in the link that brings visitors to your website. After creating the link, you can then use it as a website address for different ad campaigns.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>example of a link:<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>chatra.io\/?utm_source=facebook&amp;utm_medium=cpm&amp;utm_campaign=blog_2_post<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>When a visitor uses this link, Universal Analytics (Kissmetrics, Google Analytics, or other systems) tracks the UTM variables. Based on the UTM information, a visitor is assigned to the corresponding advertising channel and campaign, and you can analyze all their further actions. Knowing how much you paid to acquire the visitor, you can see the profit from your ad campaigns.<\/p>\n<p>A typical link looks like this:<\/p>\n<p>yoursite.com\/?utm_source=blog&amp;utm_medium=article&amp;utm_campaign=blog_1_post<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Using clear, obvious values like \u2018summer_promo\u2019 for utm_campaign will make it much easier to keep track of than random letters and numbers.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>For example, the article you are reading right now has the following address:<\/p>\n<p>chatra.io\/blog\/xxxxxxx\/<\/p>\n<p>and is advertised on Facebook with UTM codes as<\/p>\n<p>chatra.io\/blog\/xxxxxxx\/?utm_source=facebook&amp;utm_medium=cpm&amp;utm_campaign=blog_1_post<\/p>\n<p>This might look scary, but it\u2019s actually very simple:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>chatra.io\/blog\/xxxxxxx\/ <\/strong>&#8211;<strong>\u00a0<\/strong>Address of the web page the visitor comes to<\/li>\n<li><strong>utm_source<\/strong> &#8211;\u00a0Advertising system where the link was used. For example, Facebook, Google Adwords, etc.<\/li>\n<li><strong>utm_medium\u00a0<\/strong>&#8211;\u00a0Type of ad traffic. Use &#8216;cpc&#8217; for paid search (contextual advertising), &#8216;banner&#8217; for banner, &#8216;social&#8217; for social networks, &#8216;article&#8217; for articles, &#8217;email&#8217; for email newsletters, etc.<\/li>\n<li><strong>utm_campaign\u00a0<\/strong>&#8211;\u00a0The name of ad campaign itself<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<blockquote><p>Links like the above are long and scream \u201cmarketing\u201d, so you might think about using a service such as <a href=\"https:\/\/rebrandly.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Rebrandly<\/a> or similar to shorten links<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The visitors will be displayed in Google Analytics (Acquisition &gt; All Traffic &gt; Source\/Medium section) like this:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/chatra.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/ga-2.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-203\" src=\"http:\/\/chatra.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/ga-2.png\" alt=\"ga-2\" width=\"735\" height=\"249\" srcset=\"https:\/\/chatra.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/ga-2.png 735w, https:\/\/chatra.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/ga-2-300x102.png 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 735px) 100vw, 735px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Case is important in names of variables \u2013 utm_source=Facebook and utm_source=facebook are classed as different sources and will be duplicated in Analytics<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Most small\/growing businesses will only have a few ad campaigns and traffic sources. Even with just one ad channel (Facebook ads, for example), the system may pretty quickly start looking like this:<\/p>\n<p>yoursite.com\/?utm_source=fb.adv&amp;utm_medium=cpc&amp;utm_campaign=fb_1_promo<\/p>\n<p>yoursite.com\/?utm_source=fb.adv&amp;utm_medium=cpc&amp;utm_campaign=fb_2_promo2<\/p>\n<p>yoursite.com\/?utm_source=fb.adv&amp;utm_medium=cpc&amp;utm_campaign=fb_1_promo3<\/p>\n<p>yoursite.com\/?utm_source=fb.adv&amp;utm_medium=cpc&amp;utm_campaign=fb_2_promo1new<\/p>\n<p>yoursite.com\/?utm_source=fb.adv&amp;utm_medium=cpc&amp;utm_campaign=fb_3_spb_1<\/p>\n<p>yoursite.com\/?utm_source=fb.adv&amp;utm_medium=cpc&amp;utm_campaign=fb_3_spb_2_1<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Try to keep your UTM data as organized as possible. Nothing kills effective data analysis quite like a messy, disorganized batch of results.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Implementing an effective UTM system<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It often takes some time for a visitor to go from clicking a link to making a purchase. You\u2019ll probably be adding new ad campaigns in that time, so when you come to analyze your marketing according to weekly or monthly stats it may be challenging to remember the difference between &#8220;fb3_la_promo&#8221; and &#8220;fb2_nj_click&#8221;. You need a system!<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019ve got a Google doc template that you can use if you like, and change according to your needs. Open it <a href=\"https:\/\/docs.google.com\/spreadsheets\/d\/1NqnsDBpNVlmUpxcZR6wXrs43l8m0R4ysJ8YgNUQJqnI\/edit?pli=1#gid=0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>If you don\u2019t use our template, you\u2019ll find lots of UTM code creators and spreadsheets online \u2013 don\u2019t feel like you need to reinvent the wheel and do it all yourself.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Every company and marketing specialist has their own logic, but this is how we organize our data when advertising Chatra on Facebook:<\/p>\n<p>We make our \u2018utm_campaign\u2019 values pretty complex, as it allows us to filter campaigns by regions and targeting groups in Analytics as well as copy successful campaigns from one region\/target audience to another.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/chatra.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/gdocs.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-212\" src=\"http:\/\/chatra.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/gdocs.png\" alt=\"gdocs\" width=\"740\" height=\"175\" srcset=\"https:\/\/chatra.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/gdocs.png 740w, https:\/\/chatra.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/gdocs-300x71.png 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 740px) 100vw, 740px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s how it looks in Google Analytics:<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/chatra.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/ga-31.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-215\" src=\"http:\/\/chatra.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/ga-31.png\" alt=\"ga-3\" width=\"740\" height=\"369\" srcset=\"https:\/\/chatra.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/ga-31.png 740w, https:\/\/chatra.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/ga-31-300x150.png 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 740px) 100vw, 740px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>If you haven&#8217;t started using UTM yet, it\u2019s high time to start! If you don\u2019t, you\u2019re wasting a part of your marketing budget in vain. UTM data might seem intimidating when you first start using it, but you\u2019ll soon find it second nature when you\u2019re creating campaigns. Good luck!<\/p>\n<p><em>Already using UTM codes to keep track of your marketing efforts? We\u2019d love to know if you have any tips for using them successfully or in a way that\u2019s particularly clever.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Here at Chatra, we\u2019re always looking for ways to measure the effectiveness of our marketing efforts. Every visitor\u2014in one way or another\u2014costs time and money, so it&#8217;s important for us to understand how much we spend and how much we\u2019ve gained. I\u2019m sure that&#8217;s important for you too. UTM coding is one of the most [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":218,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chatra.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chatra.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chatra.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chatra.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chatra.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/chatra.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":649,"href":"https:\/\/chatra.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193\/revisions\/649"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chatra.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chatra.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chatra.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chatra.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}