Track where clicks come from.
Build tagged URLs in seconds. Source, medium, campaign, term, content. Auto-lowercased, URL-encoded, validated. Use them in ads, emails, or social posts and see exactly which one drove the visit.
What each parameter actually does.
UTM parameters are five small text tags appended to a URL that tell analytics tools where a visit came from. Three are required for Google Analytics to recognize a campaign. Two are optional. Here is what each one tracks and the conventions that keep your reports clean.
utm_source Required
facebook · google · newsletter · partner-name
Where the link lives. The platform, publication, or partner that hosts the clickable link. Use the actual name of the place, not a description: facebook (not "social media"), mailchimp or newsletter (not "email").
utm_medium Required
cpc · social · email · organic · referral
The type of link. cpc for paid search ads, social for organic social posts, email for newsletters and broadcasts, referral for affiliate or partner links. Google Analytics has a recommended list; sticking to it keeps reports comparable.
utm_campaign Required
spring-launch · black-friday-2026 · course-bundle
The name of the marketing initiative. Pick a name short enough to remember and specific enough to find six months later. Use lowercase with hyphens or underscores. Never spaces. Stay consistent across ads, emails, and social posts in the same campaign.
utm_term Optional
funnel-builder · online-course-platform
The paid search keyword you bid on. Most ad platforms auto-tag this if you enable auto-tagging in Google Ads or Microsoft Ads. Manually set it only when running paid search outside the major platforms.
utm_content Optional
v1 · hero-cta · footer-link · video-thumbnail
Distinguishes two links pointing to the same page in the same campaign. Use it for A/B test variants (v1 vs v2), button positions (hero-cta vs footer-cta), or creative variants (video-thumbnail vs static-image).
Case sensitivity Rule
utm_source=Facebook ≠ utm_source=facebook
Google Analytics treats different cases as different sources. Facebook and facebook would show up as two separate rows in your traffic report. This tool auto-lowercases all values. Pick lowercase and stick with it everywhere.
Why this is worth getting right
Sources: Conductor Digital Attribution Report 2024, Google Analytics 4 documentation, internal marketing analytics audits.
Honest answers.
UTM parameters are five small text tags you append to a URL (utm_source, utm_medium, utm_campaign, utm_term, utm_content) that tell analytics tools where the traffic came from. They were created by Urchin in the early 2000s (the U in UTM) and adopted by Google Analytics. Without them, every visit to your site looks like 'direct' or 'unknown'. With them, you can see exactly which Facebook ad, newsletter, or partner sent each visitor.
Three: utm_source, utm_medium, and utm_campaign. Google Analytics groups traffic by these three. If you skip any of the required three, the visit may show up as 'direct' instead of tracked. utm_term and utm_content are optional and used for paid search keywords and A/B testing variants respectively.
Google Analytics treats utm_source=Facebook and utm_source=facebook as two separate sources, which splits your data and makes reports messy. The convention is lowercase everywhere. This tool auto-lowercases all values so your reports stay clean. Some teams use kebab-case (spring-launch) for multi-word values; others use snake_case (spring_launch). Pick one and stick with it across all your campaigns.
Source is where the link lives. Medium is the type of link. For example, a Facebook ad would be utm_source=facebook (where the click came from) and utm_medium=cpc (a paid ad). A Facebook organic post would be utm_source=facebook and utm_medium=social (unpaid social share). A newsletter would be utm_source=mailchimp (the tool sending it) and utm_medium=email.
The name of the marketing initiative. Examples: spring-launch, q3-promo, black-friday-2026, course-bundle-2-for-1, founder-story-newsletter. Pick a name short enough to remember but specific enough that you can find it in analytics six months later. Use lowercase with hyphens or underscores; never spaces.
utm_term is for paid search keywords (utm_term=funnel-builder when bidding on that keyword in Google Ads). Most platforms auto-tag this if you turn on auto-tagging. utm_content is for distinguishing two links pointing to the same page in the same campaign: an A/B test variant (utm_content=v1 vs v2), or two CTA buttons in the same email (utm_content=top-button vs utm_content=footer-button). Both are optional.
No, when used correctly. UTMs add query parameters to inbound links, not to your own internal links or canonical URLs. Google understands UTMs as tracking parameters and ignores them when calculating page authority. The one mistake to avoid: never UTM-tag your internal site navigation. That can create duplicate page versions in Google's index and split your link equity.
Yes. Everything happens in your browser. The URL you build is not sent to systeme.io or any other server, not stored, not logged. You can verify by opening DevTools and watching the network tab while you use the tool.
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