What is a UTM in relation to Uniform Resource Locators?

UTMs  are a subset of URL parameters that are key-value pairs. The key-value pairs adds information and instructions to the URL.

UTM parameters are a specific format appended to a URL that track marketing campaign data in media sites like eCommerce sites or promotional media sites. They typically consist of five parts and all may not be present and even if present are not easily identified:

utm_source: Identifies the source of the traffic (e.g., google, email)

utm_medium: Identifies the advertising medium (e.g., cpc, organic)

utm_campaign: Identifies the specific marketing campaign

utm_term: Identifies the paid search term used (if applicable)

utm_content: Identifies the specific ad creative used (if applicable)

About URLs and UTMs

Hodentek.blogspot.com is my blog which brings up this:

One of the links at the bottom takes me, or directs me to

https://hodentekmobile.blogspot.com/2021/09/installing-android-studio-arctic-fox.html#google_vignette

So far we have had no URL parameters. The link just took us to another post in the blog.

In the following, the webpage brings https://www.amazon.com 

Searching for an author (myself) brings this page:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Jayaram+Krishnaswamy&crid=2BWW0UDS2F3NK&sprefix=jayaram+krishnaswamy%2Caps%2C195&ref=nb_sb_noss

There are URL parameters but are not UTMs. There are no UTM related key/value pairs. It is just a search page.

Here is an example of looking for a UTM page. Google places ads on the web pages and when it is clicked, the page author gets a click credit.

This is a blog page of mine with a coupon:

Click the Coupon code on this page to bring this one up:

Hitting CONTINUE will bring up this page with its URL shown below the image.

https://capitaloneshopping.com/lp/shoppingsavingscouponsm?utm_source=Unicorn&atnid=EAIaIQobChMIlaGV3P-nhwMVPlwIBB32wAB1EAEYASAAEgI3uPD_BwE

As shown in the highlighted key-value pairs you can recognize the UTM. The source 'UNICORN' is perhaps custom marketing campaign internal to the company. Media sites like Google, Facebook, etc are some examples of sources.

Another example:

https://topsearchesgo.net/1149?utm_source=zemanta&campaign_id=45129994&adset_id=60051870&ad_id=164414688&mediasource_id=b1_googleadx&publisher_id=hodentekhelp%2Eblogspot%2Ecom&placement=2161889362&click_id=63224_dde31108-431b-11ef-8da6-453632a452f2&zpbid=63224_dde31108-431b-11ef-8da6-453632a452f2

One more example from a Gold site:

https://topsearchesgo.net/1149?utm_source=zemanta&campaign_id=45129994&adset_id=60051870&ad_id=164415377&mediasource_id=b1_googleadx&publisher_id=hodentekhelp%2Eblogspot%2Ecom&placement=1812271808&click_id=63224_caa131d1-44ce-11ef-894b-844a229bc158&zpbid=63224_caa131d1-44ce-11ef-894b-844a229bc158

Benefits of UTMs:

• Tracking campaign effectiveness, effectiveness of advertising spend and improving user experience

• Drawbacks of UTMs; Hard to manage and needs steep learning to put them effectively which result in miss-implementation.

• Other forms of tracking also possible like referal codes, coupons and analytics.