UTM Link Builder

How to use the UTM Link Builder

1. Paste the destination page address, the page you want the visitor to land on.
2. Fill in utm_source (where the link lives, e.g. newsletter, facebook), utm_medium (the channel type, e.g. email, social, cpc) and utm_campaign (the campaign name, e.g. spring_sale). Term and content are optional.
3. Copy the generated link and use it in the campaign. Google Analytics will attribute every visit from it to those values.

When to use it

Whenever you put a link somewhere you cannot otherwise measure: a printed flyer with a QR code, a newsletter, a partner's website, a paid post, an influencer's bio. Without tags, those visits all show up as "direct" or blend into "social", and you cannot tell which effort paid for itself.

What each parameter means

utm_source is where the link was placed: newsletter, facebook, partner-site. utm_medium is the kind of channel: email, social, cpc, referral. utm_campaign names the effort: spring_sale, launch_2026. utm_term is for the keyword in paid search, and utm_content distinguishes two links in the same place, such as the header button and the footer link of one email. Analytics tools group visits by these values, so the useful discipline is consistency: always lowercase, no spaces (use underscores), and the same spelling every time; "Facebook", "facebook" and "FB" are three sources to a report.

Worked example

A café's October newsletter has two links to the same event page: one in the banner and one in the closing line. Both get utm_source=newsletter, utm_medium=email, utm_campaign=october_events; the banner gets utm_content=banner and the closing line utm_content=text. A week later the report shows 84 visits from the banner and 9 from the text link, which settles where next month's link goes. The same event page shared on Instagram gets utm_source=instagram, utm_medium=social, and the two channels can be compared on the same page of the report.

Common mistakes

• Inconsistent values. Decide a naming list and keep it in a note; the builder cannot enforce it.
• Tagging internal links. A UTM link from your own homepage to your own product page resets the visitor's real source. Only tag links that arrive from outside.
• Long tagged links in print. They are unreadable and error-prone typed by hand; encode the tagged link in a QR code or shorten it.
• Source and medium swapped. Source is the site, medium is the type. facebook / social, not social / facebook.

When this tool is the wrong one

It builds the link; it does not shorten it, does not track clicks itself, and does not report anything. Reports come from the analytics tool the destination site uses. For measuring a printed campaign, pair the tagged link with a QR code; for a sponsored video, the Sponsorship Pricing Calculator is about the price, and a tagged link in the description is how you measure what the sponsor got.

Good to know

Be consistent with spelling and case; Newsletter and newsletter become two separate rows in your reports. Keep a simple sheet of the tags you have used. Never add UTM tags to internal links on your own site, because that resets the visitor's original source.