What are UTM Parameters and Why Should I Be Using Them in my Marketing?

UTM codes are snippets of text added to the end of a URL to help you track where your website traffic comes from if users click a link to this URL. This is important because it allows marketers to correctly attribute the success of that campaign to specific pieces of content.

UTM stands Urchin tracking module.  It is a carryover from when Google purchased Google Analytics from Urchin Software Corporation in 2005.

So in laymans terms, using UTM parameters helps you track the source of your traffic and allows you to look back and discover the source of your conversions.

It's something you *should* be using with every external link and email link you put out publicly.

If you're promoting a campaign on social media, for example, you'll know how much traffic came from social media. Building a UTM code, however, can tell you how much of that traffic came from Facebook, or even a particular post on Facebook.

Here's an example of a URL with its own UTM code highlighted in orange at the end of the URL below:

http://blog.hubspot.com/9-reasons-you-cant-resist-list?utm_campaign=blogpost &utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook

In the example above, you're saying that once traffic comes in from people who click this link, the traffic should be attributed to Facebook. The "medium" is social media, while the "source" is Facebook.

Adding these snippets of code after the question mark above doesn't affect anything on the page -- it just lets your analytics program know that someone arrived through a certain source inside an overall marketing channel, as part of a specific campaign.

We will be adding a UTM builder internally to our system shortly.  In the meantime you can create UTM codes manually or use this UTM builder.