UTM parameters

Definition

UTM parameters are small pieces of tracking information added to the end of a URL. They help you understand where website traffic and conversions are coming from, making them especially useful when measuring the performance of affiliate links, campaigns, and promotional channels.

UTM stands for Urchin Tracking Module. Despite the slightly technical name, the concept is simple: a UTM-tagged link tells your analytics platform additional information about the person who clicked it.

For example, an affiliate might share a link to your product in their newsletter. By adding UTM parameters to that link, you can identify that the visitor came from that particular affiliate, through email, and as part of a specific campaign.

A URL with UTM parameters might look something like this:

yourstore.com/product?utm_source=affiliate&utm_medium=partner&utm_campaign=summer_sale

Common UTM parameters

The most common UTM parameters are:

• utm_source: Identifies the traffic source, such as an affiliate, website, newsletter, or platform.
• utm_medium: Identifies the marketing channel or type of traffic, such as affiliate, email, social, or paid advertising.
• utm_campaign: Identifies a particular promotion or marketing campaign.
• utm_content: Helps distinguish between different links, ads, buttons, or pieces of content within the same campaign.
• utm_term: Traditionally used to track paid-search keywords, although marketers sometimes use it for other tracking purposes.

In affiliate marketing, UTM parameters can provide an extra layer of reporting alongside the tracking provided by your affiliate platform. Your affiliate software may use unique tracking links, cookies, referral IDs, or other methods to determine which affiliate should receive credit for a sale. UTMs, meanwhile, can help you analyze that traffic within tools such as Google Analytics.

For example, you might discover that one affiliate generates most of their conversions through email while another performs particularly well through YouTube content. That information can help you understand not just who is driving sales, but how they are doing it.

However, UTMs generally shouldn't be treated as a replacement for dedicated affiliate tracking. Parameters can be removed from URLs, links can be shared in unexpected ways, and analytics attribution may differ from the attribution rules in your affiliate platform. Your affiliate platform should typically remain your primary source for calculating commissions.