Free campaign tracking tool

UTM Builder

Create consistent campaign URLs so you can tell where traffic came from, keep reporting cleaner, and avoid guessing which link, channel, or promotion produced the visit.

Campaign URL builder

Build a trackable URL

Enter the destination page and campaign labels. Values are normalized to lowercase with hyphens for cleaner reporting.

Campaign URL
https://example.com/landing-page?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=summer-sale

Nothing is submitted to an account. Build the URL, copy it, and use it in the campaign link you control.

UTM tracking in plain English

A UTM tells your analytics platform how you labeled the click.

Imagine you link to the same landing page from a Google ad, a Facebook post, an email newsletter, and a partner website. The destination page is identical, but the marketing context is not. UTM parameters let you attach consistent labels to those links so the resulting visits can be grouped and compared.

The important word is labels. UTMs do not magically prove that one channel deserves credit for a sale. They give your analytics system useful campaign information that can make attribution and reporting much easier to interpret.

TrafficCampaign rule:

Create the naming convention before you create dozens of links. Clean tracking starts with consistency, not with a more complicated analytics dashboard.

The five UTM parameters

What each parameter is supposed to describe

You will use the first three most often. The last two are optional ways to add another useful layer of detail.

utm_source

Where did the traffic come from?

Source identifies the platform, publisher, partner, list, or specific origin of the click.

Examples: google, facebook, linkedin, newsletter, partner-name

utm_medium

What type of marketing channel was it?

Medium describes the broader method used to deliver the link.

Examples: cpc, paid-social, email, organic-social, referral

utm_campaign

Which campaign or initiative was this?

Campaign groups links that belong to the same promotion, launch, event, offer, or reporting initiative.

Examples: summer-sale, product-launch, q4-lead-gen

utm_term

Which keyword, audience, or targeting detail?

Term was historically associated with paid-search keywords, but it can be used consistently for another targeting dimension when that is useful to your reporting.

Examples: running-shoes, homeowners, remarketing

utm_content

Which creative, link, or variation?

Content helps distinguish multiple links or creative variants that otherwise share the same source, medium, and campaign.

Examples: blue-button, hero-image, text-link-a

UTM naming convention

The best convention is the one your team will use consistently.

A simple naming policy prevents one channel from appearing under several different labels and makes historical reporting much easier to understand.

Use lowercase

Choose facebook, not a mixture of facebook, Facebook, FB, and fb.

Use hyphens instead of spaces

A value such as summer-sale stays readable in the URL and is easy to reuse consistently.

Define source and medium separately

Think of source as where and medium as how. Example: source=facebook and medium=paid-social.

Make campaign names recognizable later

A name like q4-lead-gen will usually age better than something vague like new-campaign-2.

Document the convention

A tiny shared naming sheet is more valuable than expecting everyone to remember how last month's links were labeled.

Do not include sensitive information

Keep names, email addresses, customer IDs, and other personally identifiable or sensitive data out of UTM values.

UTM examples

How the same landing page can be labeled across channels

Use caseSourceMediumCampaign
Google search adgooglecpcsummer-sale
Facebook paid adfacebookpaid-socialsummer-sale
Email newsletternewsletteremailsummer-sale
LinkedIn organic postlinkedinorganic-socialsummer-sale
Partner linkpartner-namereferralsummer-sale

Finished Google Ads example

https://example.com/landing-page?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=summer-sale

If you use content or term, add them only when the extra detail will actually help you answer a reporting question.

A simple workflow

Build tracking before the campaign goes live

01

Choose the destination page

Use the final page you actually want the visitor to reach. Test that the page loads correctly before adding campaign parameters.

02

Apply your naming convention

Decide the source, medium, and campaign labels. Add term or content only when you need the extra reporting dimension.

03

Generate and test the URL

Open the finished link yourself. Confirm it reaches the correct page and that the parameters remain in the URL.

04

Use the tagged URL in the campaign

Place the final URL in the ad, email, social post, QR destination, partner link, or other external campaign placement.

05

Verify the data

After traffic begins, confirm that your analytics reporting is receiving the campaign labels as expected before relying on the data for decisions.

Common UTM mistakes

Small inconsistencies can create surprisingly messy reports

Changing capitalization

facebook, Facebook, and FACEBOOK may end up behaving like separate values in reporting.

Using multiple names for the same source

facebook, fb, meta, and facebook.com may all describe the same platform but fragment your reporting.

Confusing source and medium

A useful convention keeps the platform in source and the channel type in medium instead of mixing the two unpredictably.

Tagging internal website links

Campaign UTMs are generally for inbound campaign links. Using them on your own internal navigation can interfere with acquisition context.

Creating detail nobody will use

More parameters do not automatically mean better measurement. Add term and content when they answer a real question.

Skipping the test click

A beautifully named UTM is useless if the underlying destination URL is wrong or the parameters disappear during a redirect.

Keep going

Tracking is useful only when it leads to a decision

Frequently asked questions

UTM tracking questions

What are UTM parameters?

UTM parameters are labels added to a destination URL so analytics tools can identify campaign traffic using values such as source, medium, campaign, term, and content.

Do UTM parameters affect the page someone visits?

Normally, no. The parameters travel with the URL for measurement while the visitor still reaches the same destination page.

Which UTM parameters should I use?

For most campaigns, source, medium, and campaign provide the core structure. Term and content are optional and are useful when you need to distinguish keywords, audiences, creatives, links, or other variants.

Should UTM values use spaces or capital letters?

Consistency matters more than any single convention, but lowercase values and hyphens are easy to read and help avoid fragmented reporting caused by variations such as Facebook, facebook, and fb.

Should I use UTMs on internal links?

Usually not. Adding campaign UTMs to links between pages on your own site can overwrite or confuse the original acquisition information you are trying to measure.

Can I put customer names or email addresses in UTM parameters?

Avoid putting personally identifiable or sensitive information in UTM values. Campaign URLs can be stored in analytics systems, browser history, logs, and other places where those values may be visible.

Your privacy comes first.

TrafficCampaign currently uses only essential site functionality. Optional analytics will remain off unless you choose to allow it.

Read our Privacy Policy