UTM links for campaign tracking

A plain-English guide to UTM links — what they are, why you need them, and how they help you track which emails, social posts, and ads are actually driving visitors to your website.

Have you ever sent an email campaign and wondered how many people actually clicked through to your website — and then what they did? That is exactly what UTM links help you find out. This guide explains what they are and how they work.

Quick summary

UTM links are normal website links with extra tracking information added to the end. When someone clicks a UTM link, Google Analytics records where that click came from, which campaign it was part of, and which specific link was clicked. You use them in email newsletters, social posts, and ads to track which campaigns drive real traffic.

What is a UTM link?

A UTM link is a normal URL with extra text added to the end — called "UTM parameters." They do not change the page the visitor lands on; they simply tell Google Analytics where that click came from.

For example, a regular link might look like this:

https://yourwebsite.com/services

A UTM-tagged version of the same link might look like this:

https://yourwebsite.com/services?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=spring-offer

The extra text at the end (?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=spring-offer) is the UTM data. The visitor lands on exactly the same page — the tracking labels sit in the address bar and change nothing about what they see.

The UTM parameters

Google's current list has nine parameters. These are the ones most small businesses use:

Parameter	What it tracks	Example
`utm_source`	Where the traffic is coming from	`newsletter`, `facebook`, `google`
`utm_medium`	The type of marketing channel	`email`, `social`, `cpc` (paid ads), `banner`
`utm_campaign`	The specific campaign name	`spring-sale`, `product-launch`
`utm_content`	Which specific link or creative (optional)	`header-button`, `footer-link`
`utm_term`	The keyword, for paid search (optional)	`web-design-agency`
`utm_id`	An ID for a specific campaign or promotion (optional)	`spring-2026`

Google says you should always use utm_source, utm_medium, and utm_campaign, and that if you set one parameter you should set every other relevant one too, because missing parameters show up as (not set) in your reports.

The remaining three (utm_source_platform, utm_creative_format, utm_marketing_tactic) are mainly for advertising and campaign-management platforms. Google notes that the last two are not currently reported in Google Analytics at all.

Why does this matter?

Without UTM tags, many of your marketing clicks can show up in Google Analytics as "Direct" traffic. Direct is what Analytics falls back to when a visit arrives with no source and no medium attached — which is what often happens when someone taps a link inside an email app or a messaging app.

With UTM tags, those clicks land in the right channel instead. A link tagged utm_medium=email is counted as Email; one tagged utm_medium=social is counted as Organic Social. (Analytics has no plain "Social" channel — it splits organic and paid.)

This lets you answer questions like:

Did my April newsletter drive more website visits than my March one?
Are my Instagram posts or my Facebook posts sending more traffic?
Which specific email link (the top button vs the footer link) gets more clicks?

How to create UTM links

The easiest way is to use Google's free Campaign URL Builder tool at ga-dev-tools.google/campaign-url-builder.

Enter your website URL. Paste the page you want to link to.

Fill in the UTM parameters. At minimum, fill in the campaign source, campaign medium, and campaign name fields.

Copy the generated URL. Use this link in your email, social post, or ad instead of the plain URL.

Where to see UTM data in GA4

In GA4, go to Reports, then on the left select Acquisition > Traffic acquisition. (Depending on how your property was set up, Acquisition sits inside a "Life cycle" group in the left-hand menu. If you cannot find the report at all, it may have been removed from your property's navigation — an Editor can add it back.)

The report groups your traffic by channel to start with. Switch the first column to Session source / medium or Session campaign to see your UTM values; Session source and Session medium are available there too.

You can also search the table to look at a specific campaign.

Easy to miss

UTM parameters are case-sensitive. "Newsletter" and "newsletter" are counted as two different sources. Pick a consistent naming convention and stick to it. Use lowercase and hyphens (no spaces) for the cleanest results.

Best practice for using UTMs

Always use UTMs in email campaigns
Always use UTMs in paid social posts and ads
Use UTMs for any promotional link you share — in a podcast bio, a directory listing, a partner's website
Do not add UTMs to links between pages on your own website. UTM tags are for the referral links and ad campaigns that bring people to your site in the first place, not for moving around once they are there
Keep your naming consistent. Google's own advice is to use one source value per platform and one medium value per channel, so a single campaign does not split into several rows

Common questions

You do not have to, but it helps. Without UTM tags, Analytics has to work the source out from the referring site. That usually works from a browser, but links opened inside a social app often arrive with no referrer at all and end up counted as Direct. Adding UTMs to important social posts gives you cleaner data.

Can I shorten UTM links so they look cleaner?

Usually, yes. Most link shorteners send people on to the full tagged URL, so the UTM values still reach Google Analytics. Test one of your own shortened links before you rely on it for a campaign — check that the tagged URL still shows in the address bar after the redirect.

Will UTM links affect my SEO?

Google treats a URL with parameters on the end as a different URL from the clean one, and its own guidance warns that extra parameters can create large numbers of near-identical URLs. Keep it tidy two ways: make sure each page has a canonical tag pointing at the clean (non-UTM) address, and keep UTM tags off links you would want Google to crawl, including links between pages on your own site.

Need a hand?

If you're stuck, email support@chykalophia.com and we'll help. Include your website address and a screenshot if you can.