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UTM parameters: What they are and how to use them

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UTM parameters: What they are and how to use them

UTM parameters are short text codes added to the end of a URL that help analytics tools track where website traffic comes from and how visitors find you.

The acronym stands for Urchin Tracking Module (Google’s own documentation also refers to it as Urchin Traffic Monitor), named after Urchin, a web analytics platform Google acquired in April 2005 and relaunched as Google Analytics. Today, UTM codes work with tools like Google Analytics 4, Hootsuite, and other analytics platforms.

Adding UTM codes to a link doesn’t change the landing page. Visitors still end up exactly where the link points. The extra text simply tags the click with details you can track later, like the source, medium, and campaign name.

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You can add UTM parameters to almost any link you share, but they’re especially useful for:

With 84% of U.S. adults on YouTube and 50% on Instagram, UTM parameters are especially useful for these channels because they help separate traffic that might otherwise get lumped together in analytics.

Without them, clicks from a Facebook ad and an Instagram Story could look the same, or a newsletter link and a partner referral could be indistinguishable.

By tagging each link with the where, you get a clear picture of which platforms, specific campaigns, and content types are actually driving results.

UTM and GTM solve different problems. UTM (Urchin Tracking Module) is a URL tagging system that tells analytics tools where a click came from, while GTM (Google Tag Manager) is a tag management system that deploys and manages tracking code on your website.


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