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UTM links: distinguish the sources of website visits

You share the same service page in an email and on a social platform. Later it is difficult to distinguish visits associated with that particular offer. UTM parameters add campaign labels to a destination URL so the sources can be separated.

The labels support measurement; they do not generate visitors or prove a sale. First decide what you want to compare and which action would count as a useful result.

Agree one naming convention

A Google Analytics campaign guide explains source, medium and campaign. A few agreed fields provide a practical starting point.

  • utm_source: the source of the link, such as a particular newsletter or platform.
  • utm_medium: the distribution type, such as email or a social channel.
  • utm_campaign: the agreed name for the offer or campaign.

Standardise capitalisation, spacing and naming variants. Keep a short register of the campaign, intended destination and final link so different staff members do not introduce conflicting labels.

Two people review campaign notes and an analytics view at a table
Keep consistent records of link names and destinations across the team. Illustrative photograph.

Test the label and destination together

Adding parameters should not break the page, language selection or product state. Check existing parameters too: a badly assembled URL can lose a selected category or variant.

Do not include personal names, email addresses, telephone numbers or confidential order identifiers in UTM values. URLs may be shared, logged or read by other systems. Use a non-personal campaign name.

Connect the link label to the question
Three parts of useful campaign measurement. An illustrative planning example.

Read the number with its meaning

A campaign visit is not a purchase. Browser settings and the implementation affect measurement, so do not assume every action is recorded. Verify the technical setup with a test visit.

Do not automatically apply external-campaign labels to every internal website button. Plan internal action measurement separately so the source report remains understandable.

  1. List the sources to compare and their agreed names.
  2. Create the links and open them on an actual device.
  3. Check the destination and a test record in analytics.
  4. Define how useful actions will be counted alongside visits.

Include this agreement in website planning to make later reports easier to interpret. The aim is a meaningful comparison without an unsupported promise of complete data.

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