UTM tags and their role in tracking advertising traffic

Working with advertising campaigns requires an extremely competent and professional approach from marketers. Here it is necessary to take into account many nuances directly at the stage of developing a strategy, preparing the ad itself, choosing the right format. But here the work does not end even after the ad is launched. At this stage, Internet marketers are faced with a new, quite impressive volume of tasks. And here we are talking about advertising analysis. It is important to understand how your strategy works in practice, whether it meets your expectations, what audience it attracts, what channels it comes from, etc. This is what allows you to evaluate the effectiveness, optimize ads, providing maximum results with minimal financial investment.

A lot of useful information for analyzing advertising campaigns can be obtained from such platforms as Yandex Metrica and Google Analytics. Most of them almost always determine traffic sources, be it search engines, social networks, email, direct clicks. But, unfortunately, this is where their functionality in this matter ends. That is, you will be able to see that your visitor got to the site from an external page, but from which one and what link he used, you will not be able to understand. And it is one thing if we are talking about organic traffic, because here such questions will be completely irrelevant. It is quite another thing when we talk directly about advertising. If you spend money on attracting an audience, then you must understand how and what works. This is the only way to talk about the effectiveness of the campaigns being launched and take appropriate measures to improve efficiency and optimize the budget.

One of the most effective solutions to this problem is to use UTM tags to track advertising link traffic. Thanks to such tags, you will know where a particular user came from, as well as a lot of related useful information. We will dwell on the issue of UTM tags in detail in today's review. In particular, we will tell you what they are and what architecture they have. We will provide step-by-step information that will allow you to create such tags. We will get acquainted with alternative solutions. We will tell you what dynamic parameters are in UTM and how to use them in practice.

We will give a number of examples of such tags for different advertising campaigns. We will get acquainted with the most popular UTM tag generators that each of you can use in practice. We will tell you how to correctly hide parameters in such links. We will also list the main problems in working with UTM tags and describe how to eliminate them correctly. The information provided will allow you to implement such tags in your advertising campaigns and effectively track traffic and related parameters with their help.

What are UTM tags in general

UTM tag is an abbreviation for Urchin Tracking Module. It is a parameter that will be implemented by marketers in URLs to track advertising campaigns on the Internet. Urchin is the name of the company that developed these tags at one time. About 20 years ago, Google bought this company and on its basis developed the Google Analytics tool known to all modern marketers, which is now widely used almost all over the world.

When Google launched UTM tracking decades ago, it could not even imagine how successful and effective this tool would be in practice. Its versatility led to the fact that many other analytics systems also began to implement similar tags in their work. A striking example here is Yandex Metrica. Surely many of you have already seen such a solution and know what they look like in practice, but there are those who do not even realize that they are directly in front of a UTM tag.

To make it clearer what exactly we are talking about, we will give a visual example. Let's assume that we have a site called "site". Its usual link will look like this: "https://site.ru". But if we add a UTM tag to this very site, then at the output we will get a completely different appearance, for example: «https://site.ru?utm_source=direct&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign={campaign_id}&utm_term={keyword}.»

Pay attention to the question mark: everything that will be behind it will be UTM tags. Now, for an unprepared person, all this looks completely incomprehensible and complicated, but we want to assure you that after a detailed acquaintance with our material, you will understand how everything is arranged, you will see that in fact, all this is quite simple and clear.

Key elements of UTM tags: getting acquainted with the architecture

Despite all their diversity, UTM tags are GET parameters that are embedded in the URL of the page. Thanks to this, certain information about the content will be transmitted to the server using the link. It is quite easy to understand that a GET parameter is present in the URL. You need to look at the address itself and if you see a question mark in it and a set of characters following it, then these will be the parameters, that is, UTM tags. One address can contain several GET parameters. They are separated by the ampersand sign “&”. That is, you can count the number of these signs and understand how many UTM tags are present in your URL. Each GET parameter itself will consist of two separate elements: the key and its value. That is, as a result, we get a URL that will look something like this:

http://site.ru?parameter_1=value_1&parameter_2=value_2&parameter_N=value_N

Using GET parameters in practice, you can create pages that will present product selections after filtering, display a shopping cart to a specific buyer on the site, and more. There are many, many options for their use. And one of such solutions, which we are talking about in today's review, is the transfer of UTM tags.

So, today there are 5 universal UTM tags: 3 mandatory and 2 additional or, as they are also called, optional. Mandatory tags must always be present in the URL, while optional ones are used if there is a real need for this.

The main UTM tags will be the following:

1. utm_source. Indicates directly from which channels the traffic comes. As an option, a website, an advertising platform, a contractor, social networks, etc.
2. utm_campaign. Identifies the advertising campaign itself, that is, indicates its name, as well as the product, promo code and related data.
3. utm_medium. Determines the method of receiving traffic, be it an advertising banner, price per click, mailing list, etc.

The following are optional UTM tags:

1. utm_content. Indicates a specific link that was embedded in an advertisement. Let's assume that you have 2 links in an article, post, message. Using this tag, you can identify each of them.
2. utm_term. Determines the key queries that users used to click on search ads. They are also often used to indicate the date of placement of such ads or related information.

These 5 tags will be enough for you to track traffic and conversion. In practice, there are also other, less common options, but they are rarely used, only under conditions of a clear understanding of why they are needed and what role they will play in this case. For example, utm_referrer will be used to ensure that the transition is correctly taken into account in the conditions of the Java Script redirect. Only Yandex Metrica will understand such a label. But the universal solutions that we described above are identified by all services without exception.

Getting to know the syntax of UTM labels

To understand the structure of UTM labels in more detail, let's get to know their syntax in more detail. Let's give a simple example. So, let's have the following as initial data:

• the page that is advertised: https://site.ru;
• the advertising system through which the campaign is launched: Yandex Direct;
• the type of advertising that is currently launched: search;
• the number of ads launched: 2;
• the name of our advertising campaign: “Clothing Sale”;
• key queries: “inexpensive clothing”, “clothing sale”.

Initially, we need to assign a value to our UTM tag. It will be written after the «=» sign. So, based on our initial data, we get the following:

utm_source=yandex – this is how we indicate which advertising system will be used. If desired, you can also specify similar names, such as ya-direct, yandex-direct, yandexdirect. The main thing at this stage is to make sure that both you and all those who will subsequently work with your analytics understand which system they are working with.

utm_medium=search – we indicate what type of advertising campaign we are launching. In this case, it is a search campaign.

utm_campaign=sale-odezhda – this is the name of our advertising campaign in Yandex Direct.

utm_content=ad1 – we are talking about the fact that we are now registering the ad under No. 1. Similarly, for the second ad the label will look like this: utm_content=ad2.

utm_term=rasprodaga-odezhdu – this is how we register the key request for ad No. 1. Accordingly, for ad No. 2 we get the following option: utm_term= odezhda-nedorogo.

We would like to draw your attention to the fact that when registering UTM labels it is better to use Latin. That is, at this stage we received a set of blocks for building a full-fledged URL link for tracking traffic.

Step-by-step instructions for creating links with UTM

To make it as easy as possible for you to create a link with UTM, use our recommendations, literally following them step by step:

1. indicate the name of your site, service, platform that is advertised. In our case, it will be https://site.ru.
2. After this name, we put the «?» sign, as a result we get https://site.ru?. We would like to draw your attention to the fact that we do not specify any spaces in UTM tags.
3. Add the first tag, which will identify which advertising system we are working with in this case. As a result, we get the value https://site.ru?utm_source=yandex.
4. Now, to move to another tag, we need to put the sign “&”. As a result, we get the following expression: https://site.ru?utm_source=yandex&.
5. We add the second tag, which will indicate that we are launching a search advertising campaign. At the output, we have the address https://site.ru?utm_source=yandex&utm_medium=search.
6. Again, we put the sign “&” and then we write the next tag. We repeat all these actions until all your UTM parameters are specified. After the last tag, you do not need to enter any values or symbols. As a result, for our 1st ad we get the following address: https://site.ru?utm_source=yandex&utm_medium=search&utm_campaign=sale-odezhda&utm_content=ad1&utm_term=rasprodaga-odezhdu. Accordingly, our 2nd ad will look like this: https://site.ru?utm_source=yandex&utm_medium=search&utm_campaign=sale-odezhda&utm_content=ad1& utm_term=odezhda-nedorogo.

We would like to draw your attention to the fact that the Google search engine will recognize UTM tags regardless of the order in which they are written. That is, you can change their places without fear that the tracking results will be different. But the Yandex search engine is quite meticulous about the sequence of specifying tags. They must be placed in the order we specified above. To avoid various complications and the need to perform additional work when interacting with different search engines, we recommend that you still adhere to the correct sequence, because this is a universal solution for any system.

We hope that now the whole set of symbols, which at the beginning of our review seemed completely incomprehensible to you, has acquired its logic. But we continue to get acquainted with this issue further.

Alternative tags

Along with UTM tags, today there are also other ways to track traffic channel links. Now we will consider the most popular analogues.

gclid

gclid is a function for automatic marking of advertising links, which is actively used today by the Google Ads platform. In this case, the appearance will be as follows:

Compared to UTM tags, this technology has a number of significant disadvantages. In particular, you can use gclid only when working with Google Ads - you cannot use it on other sites. Accordingly, Google Analytics also works with this function. In principle, you can use gclid if your entire advertising campaign is built using Google Ads and Google Analytics. Otherwise, it is important to understand that you will not be able to collect summary statistics from different advertising channels in one system.

yclid

In essence, yclid - this is the same function as gclid, only it works in Yandex Direct. It looks like this:

The disadvantages will be the same as in the previous version, only this time in relation to the platforms and tools of another search engine, namely Yandex Direct, Yandex Metrica.

We would like to draw your attention to the fact that other advertising systems also have their own UTM tags. As an option, in Facebook Ads it will be fbclid, and in Yandex Market - ymclid. But again, they will only work in their native environment, which significantly reduces the efficiency of their use in practice and does not allow you to get the most clear and reliable picture of the traffic channels in your advertising campaign.

from

from is a label that can also be used to determine the source of the transition in the Yandex Metrica system. It looks like this:

The main disadvantage of this solution is that such labels can only transmit one parameter, such as the source of the traffic itself. That is, their information content will be quite low. For comparison, using UTM tags allows you to transfer 5 times more parameters.

Openstat

Openstat is a tag that is also used when working with advertising links in the Yandex Direct system. It looks like this:

This is the only analogue that, like UTM tags, has a tree structure. Here, 4 different parameters can be passed:

1. openstat_service: indicates the channel from which the traffic will come.
2. openstat_ad: this is the name of the advertisement.
3. openstat_campaign: displays the advertising campaign itself.
4. openstat_source: indicates the name of the site from which the work is carried out.

We repeat that only Yandex Metrica will understand such tags. If you decide to use Google Analytics in your work, you will need to additionally make changes to the counter code to decrypt the data.

Features of using dynamic parameters in UTM tags

Everything we said above about UTM tags was directly related to static options. That is, these are the parameters that remain constant. In this case, the analytics system will record only the specified value, namely a specific advertising system, a specific word, one request. But at present, most advertising systems, including Google Ads and Yandex Direct also support dynamic UTM tags. This is what will allow you to track even more metrics and ads. Alternatively, you will be able to understand what position your ad occupied, what query a particular user entered, as a result of which the system showed him your ad.

If we talk about the Yandex Direct system, then the UTM tag with dynamic parameters will look like this:

Please note that the example indicates all possible parameter options. So, «ad={ad_id}» will indicate the individual ID number of your ad, «type={source_type}» - on the type of the platform, where search is a search, and context is networks. The Yandex advertising system has its own help, where you can find all possible parameter options and study their decoding in more detail.

The Google Ads system also has its own dynamic UTM tags. It has its own tracking system called Value Track. In this case, the link will look like this:

Please note that the marking here will be as follows:

• network — this is an advertising network, and then g indicates search, s is a search partner, d is the KMS;
• keyword is the key request in response to which the system showed your ad;
• creative is the individual ID number of the ad.

Features of UTM tags for different advertising campaigns

Different types of advertising campaigns have their own nuances of using UTM tags. This means that you need to understand in advance what parameters will need to be set in each specific case. Now we will give examples of what UTM tags will look like for:

1. Contextual advertising.
2. Targeted advertising.
3. Native placements.
4. Email newsletters.
5. QR codes.

Before we move on to a more detailed acquaintance, we would like to draw your attention to the fact that when working with SEO, you will not need to use such tags at all. The fact is that in this case, traffic will be analyzed exclusively in terms of organic traffic, that is, direct transitions from search engines. Here we are not talking about advertising campaigns or any other ads. To take into account the number of such transitions, which will play an important role in SEO, you just need to install the appropriate counters in Yandex Metrica, Yandex Webmaster, Google Analytics, and also in Google Search Console. This is what will allow you to understand what queries users come to you for.

And now we move directly to getting acquainted with examples of placing UTM tags specifically in advertising campaigns.

What UTM tags look like in contextual advertising

The first thing we want to draw your attention to here is that tracking traffic with UTM tags in contextual advertising is not a mandatory requirement. Everything here depends on what advertising platforms you are working with at the moment. So, if it is exclusively Google Ads, then you can easily get by with the gclid metric, which was already discussed above. If you are running ads in Yandex Direct, you can use yclid or Openstat markup.

But still, if you are determined to reach the maximum target audience and are running these ads in different channels, it is important to ensure comprehensive traffic monitoring, and in a single system. And in such cases, you should use UTM tags. Here the classic structure will look like this:

If you adapt it to the Google Ads advertising platform, then the UTM tag entry will be like this:

Accordingly, for Yandex Direct we get the following address with UTM tags:

What UTM tags look like in targeted advertising

In targeted advertising, UTM tags are also used to track traffic from ads launched on social networks. In this case, we get the following URL structure for marking links in ads:

For ads in myTarget, the URL with UTM tags will look like this:

For ads launched in VK Advertising accounts, the following will be relevant next example:

What UTM tags look like for native placements

By native placements we mean guest posts that will contain information about your brand, product, service, as well as links integrated into articles, mentions in social networks, etc. The URL structure for natural links with UTM tags will look like this:

If we are talking about posts in social networks, we get this solution:

For a guest post, an example URL with UTM tags will be as follows:

In case of placing natural links with UTM tags, we get the following address option:

What UTM tags look like in an email newsletter

In the case of an email newsletter, the URL must be supplemented with the appropriate UTM tags. Otherwise, you won't be able to tell that your audience came directly from your emails.

Here the structure may look like this:

And if we talk directly about the example of a URL, supplemented with UTM tags in the context of an email newsletter, then we get a similar option:

What UTM tags for QR codes look like

We would like to draw your attention to the fact that with the help of UTM tags you can organize tracking not only of online conversions, but also of all those user actions that are carried out offline. This is ensured by using QR codes. In this case, the UTM tag structure can be as follows:

As an example of a URL equipped with UTM tags for a QR code, we will give the following option:

Generating UTM tags: possible solutions

The examples of creating UTM tags that we gave above showed that the process itself is quite simple, logical and understandable. But the main difficulty is that at the output we get quite cumbersome URL addresses. And this is what increases the labor intensity of the work, requires more time, effort, increases the risk of errors. Today, few people create such tags manually. This is no longer necessary, because there are special services that will take on the generation of UTM tags. We would like to immediately draw your attention to the fact that quite a few such options have already been created, but we will dwell in more detail on the most common solutions:

1. Campaign URL Builder. This is a UTM generator created by Google itself. To use it, you will need to enter the URL of the main page in the appropriate line, as well as all the parameter values that will be relevant to you at a given time. Literally a couple of seconds of waiting, and you get a ready-made link at the output.
2. Google Sheets templates. With their help, you can also start generating UTM tags. Today, there is a huge variety of templates here that can become the basis for your links with additional parameters. That is, you will just need to create your own copy of the template, specify the corresponding URL and all the necessary UTM tags, receiving a ready-made link at the output.
3. Tilda. An extremely simple and easy-to-use UTM generator, with which you can create tags for advertising campaigns launched on such platforms as Google Ads, Facebook Ads, Yandex Direct, VKontakte, myTarget. Here you simply show the landing page, select the advertising system that suits you from the list provided, enter UTM tags and receive a ready-made link at the output. This tool is convenient in work because it can independently substitute the most relevant dynamic parameters. If you decide to change something manually, Tilda offers to use the built-in directory, which contains information on each of the advertising systems.

Which option for generating UTM tags to choose is an individual matter. Just get acquainted with each possible solution, evaluate its simplicity, convenience, functionality. This is what will allow you to make a choice as quickly as possible.

Hide UTM tags in links

In the examples we have given above, you have already seen how impressive the length of links with embedded UTM tags is. All this looks quite frightening for users, and causes a number of inconveniences at the stage of copying such URL addresses. Therefore, the question of shortening such links naturally arises. We would like to immediately draw your attention to the fact that when working with contextual or targeted advertising, there is no need to do such work at all. The fact is that in this case, users will simply click on your ad to make a transition without even noticing the link itself. This is also true for advertising URLs with a text anchor.

But along with this, there are many cases when URL addresses still need to be shortened. Let's say you want to share such a link in the comments on a forum, under a post on social networks, etc. Without shortening, such addresses will look excessively cumbersome and unattractive. And here you should use special programs, which are called “shorteners”. Most often, modern users use such software solutions as to.click, clck.ru, cutt.ly, golink.su.

Another way to shorten URLs with UTM tags is to buy a new domain and then set up a 301 redirect. In this case, a direct transition from this domain to a link with additional parameters will be set up. But here you need to be extremely careful, because such actions can attract the attention of search engines and provoke sanctions from them. You also need to be extremely careful when using scripts at the stage of hiding GET parameters. Such actions of yours may cause problems with the transfer of information in analytical systems.

Nuances of tracking statistics via UTM tags on the Yandex Metrica platform

The process of monitoring information based on UTM tags in the Yandex Metrica service is quite simple and convenient. You need to initially go to the "Reports" tab, then select the "Sources" option in it, and then click on the "UTM Tags" tool. For greater convenience, group the data in the report by the tags that you need at a given time. To do this, go to the "Groupings" tab, and in the "Tags" block, select the options you need with a tick, then click the "Apply" button.

It is also important to ensure the correct recognition of the tag. To do this, use the special UTF-8 encoding. This metric will record your tag already during the first viewing by users. If you do not add such a tag, it will not be taken into account for the entire visit.

Potential problems with UTM tags and how to solve them

Today, there are a number of problems that can arise when working with UTM tags. Now we will consider the most common errors and tell you how to eliminate them as quickly as possible.

Errors made in the syntax of the UTM tag

This is the problem that occurs most often in practice. Its main reason is the bulkiness of the tags themselves. As a result, spaces appear in them, ampersands are missed, etc. All this leads to the fact that statistics are not collected, that is, your UTM tag does not work. You can eliminate such problems quite easily if you use generators to create them. But there are also a number of additional recommendations that will be useful to you in practice:

• if you leave the required parameters empty, the information will be collected incorrectly;
• the value of the tags is highly case-sensitive: for example, yandex and Yandex will be different parameters for the system;
• use Latin when writing UTM tags;
• your URL with UTM tags should contain only one question mark;
• check for spaces between characters in the URL;
• all words used in tags must be separated by underscores or hyphens: no spaces;
• use UTF-8 encoding on your site;
• in case of simultaneous use of automatic markups from Yandex/Google, as well as UTM, be sure to check that the link you received is working.

Following these recommendations, you can minimize the occurrence of errors related to the syntax of UTM tags.

Not following the logic in UTM tags

Correct construction of UTM tag logic involves moving from the general to the specific. If you work with different types of advertising, it is also advisable to follow the standard structure, making it if not identical, then still quite similar. If you initially make mistakes at this stage, you will launch incorrect monitoring, monitor the indicators that you do not need, and, on the contrary, miss the important ones. As a result, you will get a huge amount of unnecessary information that cannot be used when working with advertising.

Using only static UTM tags in work

Practice shows that static UTM tags are subject to more complex monitoring, although they will be less informative. But in order to create them, you will need much more time. Therefore, experts recommend paying more attention to dynamic parameters, especially when it comes to contextual and targeted advertising.

Combining links with UTM tags with and without them

It does not matter at all to users which URL addresses they will follow: regular ones or those with embedded UTM tags. At the end, they will still get access to the same material. But the difficulty here is that search engines will perceive such addresses as completely different pages, indexing both the main URL and the one supplemented with tags. As a result, it turns out that 2 absolutely identical pages will be indexed, but only with modified links. As a result, duplication appears. To fix this problem, you will need to write the following code in the robots.txt file:

In this case, the Clean-param directive is used, which tells the search engine not to index the URL that contains GET parameters. The example shows what the code should be for the Yandex search engine. A similar action should be done for Google bots. The only difference here is the use of the Disallow directive.

Summing up

Launching advertising — This is always a rather labor-intensive and complex process that involves taking into account a huge number of different factors, among which UTM tags should also be taken into account. In order to get a strategy that will be highly effective and ensure the desired influx of the target audience, you will need to put in a lot of effort. Using specialized services that will collect information about competitors and the state of the market as a whole, and identify current trends will help to significantly simplify and speed up the work. However, not all such software solutions will be available to all marketers. Many of them are banned at the regional level.

This problem can be easily solved by using mobile proxies from the MobileProxy.Space service. Detailed information about this product is presented here. But we would like to note that with their help you can bypass access blocking, use the solution to automate monotonous and routine work, provide yourself with high levels of confidentiality and guaranteed protection from unauthorized access. This is what will make the work of a marketer, and the Internet as a whole, as functional, convenient, and stable as possible.

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