One of the most important problems for any website is to attract an audience. We all know that advertising on social networks, including Instagram, Telegram, as well as reporting, email marketing, and inserting banners, are a way to attract an audience. One of the most important problems in advertising is to determine the number of inbound links to the site. Now the question arises: how can the CEO or a person working in the field of digital marketing determine how many times each ad was clicked and how much it engaged the audience? One of the easiest ways is to use UTM links. If you also want to create a UTM link, follow the text to know the definition of UTM and how to create a UTM link and its uses.
What is UTM?
UTM stands for Urchin Tracking Module. Urchin is a software company that offered a product called Web Statistics Analysis to check user behavior on the website. In 2005, Google bought this company. What we know today as Google Analytics is the product of the purchase of this software. In this software, you can view the overall statistics of the website as well as other information and data in the statistics section. One of Orchin's innovations is the generation of UTM links that have been adopted for use in Google Analytics.
Generally speaking, we can say that adding parameters at the end of site links (URLs) to obtain statistical information is called UTM. In the following text, you will learn how the UTM link is made and what it is used for.
Advantages of using UTM links in business
We all know that business owners and those involved in digital marketing try to attract audiences and visitors to the website through advertising. There are many ways to advertise to these people. One of the most important topics in this field is determining the best and most profitable methods to attract an audience.
In order for administrators to determine which method generates the most visits, clicks or purchases, they need to collect specific statistics and information. Using UTM links is one of the best ways to get traffic statistics on a website through ads or various campaigns. One of the main advantages of UTM links is their ease of creation and use. All you have to do is add a special code at the end of the link and use it in different places.
Advertising is usually done through email marketing, SMS marketing, online advertising (banners, Google Ads, ...), social networks (Telegram, Instagram, ...) and offline advertising (event, contract, ...) and ... UTM links make it easy to track the number of clicks and leads you have received from your ads during a specific period of time. By simply using these UTM links, you can know that the user who accessed your website came through the campaign or a specific website that advertised for you, or if the audience entered through the campaign, which banner brought you to the website.
Where can UTM links be used?
You can use UTM links anywhere except on your own website. It is best to use UTM links with your marketing team whenever you need to share a link from your website so that you can analyze the level of audience engagement. Be careful not to use UTM links on your website as they alter Google Analytics data.
Various parameters of UMT links
UTM links usually have several different parameters that indicate which ad or campaign these links are specific to. UMT link parameters include utm_source, utm_medium, utm-camppain, utm_content, and utm_term.
- utm_source: This parameter specifies where the entry should come from. For example, if you want to promote your product or service on Telegram, select the utm_source value in Telegram. If you want to advertise on multiple Telegram channels, you can write the channel name next to Telegram. For example, you can enter the name of Telegram. If your ad type is Report, you can use utm_source=reportage.
- utm_medium: This parameter specifies the display type. The advertisement can be of different types, including different types of advertisements such as banners, emails, or click-through ads. For example, if the link is a banner, you should use the banner parameter. If you want to use click-through ads, you should use the cpc parameter.
- utm-camppain: This parameter is usually used for the name of the campaigns you want to run. For example, if you want to run a winter campaign, use "Winter", which indicates a winter sale campaign. Or if you want to run a commercial campaign on the occasion of Yalda party, you should use utm_campaign=yalda in the utm link.
- utm_content – This parameter determines the content of your ad. Let’s say you are placing a banner to promote a shoe product. In this case, you can use this parameter as utm_content=shoes in your UTM link. Of course, using this parameter is not mandatory.
- utm_term: This parameter allows you to know what keyword users used to access your website. This type of parameter is usually used for ads such as Google Ads and determines the number of users who searched for a keyword on your website. For example, you can monitor the number of users who accessed the website by searching for this word by adding کرید_غوشی = utm_term in the UTM link.
Different Methods to Create UTM Links
You can create UTM links in different ways. Learn more about some of these methods below. Needless to say, all these methods are for link building and you can choose any of the methods to create UTM links.
- The First Method: The first method of creating UTM links can be mentioned manually. Based on the above parameters, you can manually write UTM links and use them in various ads and campaigns. Just write the parameters correctly at the end of your links. This method requires entering three parameters: campaign name, medium, and source. Other parameters like campaign content and campaign keyword can be omitted.
With this method, you first need to enter the desired address and link. Is a character required after the slash at the end of the link? and then enter the required parameters along with their values. The parameters should be separated by &.
- Method 2: Using UTM tools is one of the other methods of link building. UTM builders are tools that make link building simple. You just need to fill in the requested information in the form to access the desired link. One of the recommended tools is Google’s UTM Link Builder. The Google Analytics URL Builder plugin has made UTM linking much easier.
- Method 3: Using Excel can also help you create UTM links. You can create the UTM links you need by writing formulas in Excel.
- Method 4: Using browser extensions can also be a good way to generate UTM links. To create UTM links, various extensions are placed in browsers. Google Analytics URL Builder, UTM.io, and UTM Builder are some of the available extensions that you can use for link building.
Using short links
You can use UTM links and short links directly in your ads or campaigns. UTM links sometimes don't look pretty because of their length and the presence of several characters and symbols. You can use short links for this. Of course, the presence of these short links can be very useful in some social networks with character limits. You can use different websites to shorten the links (short links). The Analytics UTM tool automatically provides you with the short link and you no longer need to use other websites to shorten the link.
Important points when creating UTM links
When creating UTM links, you should first pay attention to case sensitivity. It is best to always write the links in lowercase letters. If you have to use a space, it is best to use a minus sign (hyphen). Using a space will cause the generated URL to contain a lot of %20 characters, which does not look good.
For better analysis, you can use the very useful annotation feature of Google Analytics. Annotation allows you to leave notes in Google Analytics reports and write down what happened. It is best to use a specific naming structure when creating links. For example, if you always advertise on social networks, it is best to always set the “Medium” parameter to “Social”.
Keep in mind that there is no character limit for generating UTM links, but it is best to keep the links as short as possible. It is important to mention that UTM links do not affect your website’s SEO, nor do they lead to a reduction in clicks.
Where and how can I view the link report?
After generating the UTM link and using it in campaigns and ads, one of the questions we ask ourselves is: Where and how to view the report using these links? You can use Google Analytics to view UTM link reports. When you use UTM links, the information is received and recorded as a dimension in Google Analytics. Therefore, you can use them in all analytics reports.
By using Google Analytics reports and viewing all the parameters, including bounce rate, conversion rate, etc., you will know how many users have interacted with each link. To view reports on these links, you can go to the Acquisition section in Google Analytics and open the All Campaigns report in the Campaign Reports section. You can also add other metrics such as city, country, internet browser, user device, etc. as second metrics.
What information does the UTM link provide us?
The most important point when creating and using UTM links is the information and statistics they show us. Using these links answers three important and practical questions asked by people actively involved in digital marketing. First: where do the traffic and clicks come from? And how did the user who arrived on the page via the UTM link get here? And in general, can you understand why the traffic appears?
You can access the number of pages viewed by the user, the time spent on the site and other information through Google Analytics. By analyzing this information, you can easily find out how many clicks each ad or campaign generated and how many visitors and audiences they directed to the website.
Diploma
In this article you will learn step by step how to generate UTM links and how to generate this type of links. You can create a UTM link for each ad or campaign in order to have separate entries on your website. Now you can easily monitor traffic from social networks, various campaigns and advertisements. The higher the location parameters in the UTM link, the more accurate the report.
Although this tool is simple, it is an important and convenient tool for optimal and targeted advertising in the online advertising space. From now on, be sure to use these helpful links when designing and planning ads to make the most of your resources for growth and success.
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