To create a UTM link, take the page address you want people to visit and add tracking parameters to the end: at least utm_source (who sent the visitor), utm_medium (the type of channel) and utm_campaign (like a campaign). When someone clicks, your analytics platform reads those tags and credits the visit to the right campaign instead of lumping it in with general traffic.
Handwritten parameters invite typos that break your data into fragments. A UTM builder assembles the link from highlighted fields, handles the question marks and ampersands, and produces a URL that you can paste directly into an email, ad or social post.
The five default parameters
Google Analytics recognizes several UTM parameters. Five are used by almost every marketing team, and the first three should appear on every branded link; leaving one produces “(not set)” entries in your reports.
Google Analytics is also supported utm_id for a campaign ID and utm_source_platformwhich are useful when importing cost data or managing campaigns across multiple platforms. For most small and medium-sized businesses, the five above cover everything.
Worked example: Building and decoding a campaign link
A US software company sends out their monthly customer newsletter to promote a free webinar. The email contains two links to the same registration page: a button at the top and a text link at the bottom. The marketing manager wants to know how many signups came from the newsletter, and which link worked better.
The registration page is:
Here is how each field for the top button is filled out.
The resulting link is:
? utm_source=Client-
newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=webinar-year-end-reporting&utm_content=top-button
Line 1. Use the last URL of the page. If the address you mark redirects, most redirects keep the parameters, but some dispute them, and the extra hop slows down the click. Check with a redirect checker if you’re not sure.
Line 2. “Customer newsletter” is more specific than “newsletter”. Six months from now it will be clear which list this was.
Line 3. “Email” is lowercase and singular. Google Analytics groups traffic in default channels partly by medium, and using the conventional value helps the visitor land in the email channel instead of “Unassigned”.
Line 4. The same campaign name is used on LinkedIn posts and affiliate promotions for this webinar, so the report can show total signups across all sources.
Line 5. Leave optional fields blank instead of entering values. An empty parameter is simply omitted from the URL.
Line 6. The footer link is identical except utm_content=footer-link. Comparing the two shows whether readers act early or only after reading the entire email.
Build your own tagged link: enter your page address, source, medium and campaign in the free UTM link builder to generate a clean, correctly formatted campaign URL that you can copy into your email, ad or post.
A naming convention saves your reports
Parameter values are case-sensitive in Google Analytics, so Facebook, facebook in the FB appear as three different sources. Most messy campaign reports return inconsistent names rather than missing tags. Agree on some rules and write them down:
- Only in the lower case. No exceptions.
- Hyphens instead of spaces. Places are given
%20or+and URLs and are easy to mistype. - A fixed list of media. For example: email, social, paid-social, cpc, display, referral, partner, print, qr.
- Descriptive, durable campaign names. Name the offer or event, not the person who set it up.
- A shared logbook. A simple table of each tagged link, its date and its purpose keeps the whole team consistent.
Where UTM links help, and where they hurt
Use them to: Emails, social posts, paid social ads, affiliate and affiliate links, press releases, podcast show notes, and printed materials through a short link or QR code. When printing a code on a flyer, mark the destination first and then generate the code with a QR code generator, using utm_medium=print or qrso offline campaigns also appear in your reports.
Never use them on internal links in your own website. When you click on a UTM-tagged link, a new attribution begins, so that a visitor who arrived from a Google search and then clicked on a tagged banner on your home page will be attributed to the banner instead. Your organic search figures will shrink and the internal campaign will look much better than it is.
Check before you mark paid search. Google Ads auto-tagging already matches detailed campaign data to Google Analytics. Manually adding UTMs above may conflict with that unless you have intentionally configured both.
Frequently asked questions
What UTM parameters are required?
Analytics will pick up a link with just one parameter, but you should always include utm_source, utm_medium and utm_campaign. Google’s guidance recommends the three as a minimum, and leaving one of them out results in “(not set)” values, which make reports harder to read. utm_term and utm_content are optional.
Do UTM parameters affect SEO?
Not if used correctly on external campaign links. Search engines generally treat a tagged URL as the same page, especially if your page has a canonical tag pointing to the clean address. Problems arise when UTM links are used internally or widely shared and indexed, so keep them for external campaigns.
Why are my UTM campaigns showing as “(not set)” or “Not assigned”?
Usually a parameter is missing, misspelled (utm-source instead of utm_source) or uses an unusual mean value that does not correspond to a standard channel. A redirect that strips the query string can also lose the tags. Build the link with a builder and test it by clicking and checking your real-time report.
Can I shorten a UTM link?
Yes. Long tagged URLs can look awkward in social posts and print. A link shortener redirects to the full URL, and the parameters are passed as long as the redirect contains the query string. Test the short link once before publishing to confirm that the tags are coming.
Tagged links turn “we got some traffic” into “this email and this button produced these signups,” which is the proof you need to decide where the next marketing dollar is going. Set your naming rules once, then create each campaign link with TechBullion’s campaign URL builder so data stays clean from the first click.