UTM (Urchin Tracking Module) tags are used to identify campaigns that refer traffic to a specific website.
If you want to track where your site traffic comes from, and your website has the capability, then you can automatically add UTMs to your campaign links, such as ?Ref=email. UTM tags can be custom code or a Google Analytics code. You can edit and customise Google Analytics code values.
UTM tags allow you to gather valuable information on how your links are being used and how effective they are – providing you with enhanced site analytics.
Before you start
Things you need to know:
UTMs can't be added to links using Liquid.
UTM tags aren’t automatically applied to personalised links. For example, account-level UTM tags won't be added to https://@DOMAIN_URL@/homepage/footer. You must add the tags manually to personalised links.
To apply changes to link tracking to your existing campaigns, you must resave them once you have set up any new UTM tags. Your tracking parameters are automatically added to any new campaigns you create.
Add generic UTM code
If you want to add UTM tracking to your links for systems other than Google Analytics:
Expand the User menu and go to Settings > Tracking > Broadcast email link tracking.
Select ADD NEW.
For Field, enter a field into the textbox.
For Value, enter a value into the textbox.
For example, setting the field as Ref and the value as email gives: www.example.com/?Ref=email.
Select the Remove unsafe characters checkbox to automatically remove unsafe characters so your UTM’s parameters are not removed by website security profiles.
The following characters are removed: < > “ # % { } | \ ^ ~ [ ] ` ‘
Select SAVE.
Add Google Analytics UTM tags
Expand the User menu and go to Settings > Tracking > Broadcast email link tracking.
Select the GOOGLE ANALYTICS TRACKING button in the top right.
If you don't see this button, then this process has already been carried out and you should see the Google fields already listed.
The Google Analytics tracking window displays to confirm the field and values you're adding:
Select CONTINUE to add these values under Link tracking. By doing this, you are automatically adding the following to your links:
utm_campaign=[Your campaign name] - the name of the campaign that referred the user to the site.
utm_medium=email - the medium by which someone arrived on the site.
utm_source=[Your company name] - the name of the company that referred the user to the site.
View tracked campaigns in Google Analytics
We recommend making sure that you add names to your links when creating your campaigns. This means you should be able to find them in your Google Analytics 4 dashboard reports.
In Google Analytics, go to Acquisition > Campaigns > All Campaigns
Select the campaign you're interested in.
Add a Secondary dimension of Ad Content.
This adds an Ad Content column that shows all the sessions that came in through those named links.
Customise Google Analytics UTM values
If you don't want to use our default values for Google Analytics tracking, you can customise them by selecting the Edit icon next to the value you want to change.
For instance, you might want to customise a couple of the values as follows:
utm_medium=MyEmailMarketingProvider - the name of your email marketing provider/medium, so Dotdigital.
utm_source=email marketing
To do this:
Select the Edit icon next to the UTM you want to edit.
Enter your own value in the Value input field.
You can use the personalisation function for contact-specific values.
Select SAVE to confirm any changes made.
Add personalisation to your UTM code
Contact data fields
You can add contact data field personalisation to the link tracking Value.
From the Link tracking menu, select the Personalisation icon at the end of the Value text box.
Expand the drop-down menu and select a data field to use for personalisation.
Select SAVE.
System fields
In addition to your contact data fields, there are a number of system fields that you can choose from to populate a value into your UTM.
They are:
$CAMPAIGN_NAME$
The name of the campaign that the link is contained in.
$CAMPAIGN_TAGS$
A list of the campaign tags added to the campaign. Multiple tags are separated by an underscore:tag1_tag2_tag3$CAMPAIGN_ID$
The numerical ID of the campaign.
$CAMPAIGN_NAME_WITHOUT_ID$
The campaign name only, without the appended campaign ID.$COMPANY_NAME$
Your company name, as recorded in Settings > Billing > Billing details > Company details.$LINK_KEYWORD$
The link name entered in the Add a link window in EasyEditor.$SPLIT_TEST_VERSION$
Returns the version number for each creative content version of a split test campaign. For example:
0 for version A
1 for version B
The split test Creative setting must be enabled for this field to return results.
To add system fields to your link tacking:
From the Link tracking popup, enter one of the above system fields to the Value input field.
Select SAVE.
Edit and delete a UTM tag
Any UTMs that you create and save appear under Link tracking. From here you can:
edit your UTM by selecting the edit icon at the end of each UTM.
delete your UTM by selecting the checkbox next to a UTM and selecting DELETE.
Further information
Watch our Google Analytics 4 training video.
You can add different or additional tracking to your email campaign links at an individual campaign level.