What does UTM stand for in marketing?

One of the most important parts of marketing activities, regardless of being carried out offline or online, is to measure the marketing campaign performance. Obviously, without a proper measuring plan in place, a marketing professional will not be able to justify his/her work or a company or business can’t analyze the value for money they have spent on their marketing campaign. It becomes more important when it comes to digital marketing for online businesses, as it’s more complicated in comparison with offline marketing campaigns. There are quite a few tools out there for measuring and analyzing the performance of marketing activities. We, through this article will make you become familiar with UTM or Urchin Tracking Module.

What is UTM?

UTM stands for Urchin Tracking Module. It is basically a method through which the marketing professional encodes a URL to give special information to Google Analytics about that specific URL, in order to help Google Analytics to provide more precise reports. Generally, by adding UTM tags to a URL, Google Analytics will be able to provide you with valuable information about where the traffic is coming from and how the traffic is redirecting through that URL, or basically how users are behaving! It goes without saying that such information gives you the capability of realizing the best performing parts of your marketing campaign, so you can optimize accordingly.

How UTM is capable of adding value to your business

In general and like described earlier in this article, UTM helps to understand your traffic in detail. To be more specific, UTM makes you capable of analyzing your keywords paid Ads and see which keyword is generating more conversion and which one is not converting enough! Besides, you can get a clear understanding to see whether your SEO plan in general and your content creation in particular, is generating traffic and conversion for you by reviewing the reports from Google Analytics on the areas that your SEO plan is focusing on! If you are working with a professional SEO consultant in Dubai, such reports are normally a part of their services.On top of that, you can create a unique URL with UTM tags for every single influencer that you might be working with, in order to analyze their performance. Long story short, UTM classifies traffic data in detailed and understandable categories and provides valuable information on how all aspects of your marketing activities are performing.

How to accurately create a UTM code?

Creating UTM code is not that complicated. If you have basic knowledge in programming you can do it by yourself. However, you will be better off by using a UTM generator to make clean, neat and more importantly short UTM codes. Even though UTM code creation is normally not a part of a standard package for website design in Dubai, you can ask your website designer to do it for you, if you wish to do so. Hence, you have multiple options in order to create your UTM encoded URLs. However, either option you choose to work with, it’s always a good idea to understand how a professional UTM code looks and also its five main parameters. Let’s see what the building blocks of a UTM are.

UTM main parameters

1. UTM source

Source parameter helps you to identify the source of your incoming traffic. The source can be a website name, a social media platform or a specific search engine. Example: utm_source=google

2. UTM medium

Medium can be used to track the type of marketing channels that your landing pages are reached through. This can be Social Media, Search  Engines, Email Marketing, etc. Example: utm_medium=cpc

3. UTM campaign

If you have multiple marketing campaigns, you can use a campaign tag to identify which campaign directed traffic towards your website. Example: utm_campaign=summer-sale

4. UTM content

If you have multiple links that are pointing to a single URL, you can use content tags to realize which link is generating more traffic. Example: utm_content=cta-button

5. UTM term

The term code is pretty much used for analyzing paid Ads. It determines the keyword that attracted more users and generated more traffic. Example: utm_term=buy-tickets

Wrapping Up

UTM tags can be very beneficial if they are created correctly and in a professional way. The more information you have about how your marketing campaigns are performing from different aspects, the better you can optimize your marketing budget. It is highly recommended to work with a professional digital service provider, when it comes to UTM code creation and more importantly Google Analytics reports analysis. Even though it costs you some extra money, you will save a lot on your marketing spending by optimizing your marketing budget plan. One of the best digital service providers in the UAE market is Websima DMCC. Websima has been working in the market for more than a decade now and managed to create a track record of success by delivering quality projects to many happy clients across different industries.

Get in contact with confidence and book for a free consultation meeting to discuss your needs further. They will get back to you with an offer that suits your needs best.