How to Create Unique UTM Links for Social Media Marketing

UTMs for social media marketingWhen marketing on social media it’s important to monitor how much traffic comes to your website from these sources. This is where UTMs come in. UTM stands for Urchin Tracking Module. These are the parameters that can be added to every link that you publish on social media, including advertisements, posts in groups and on your business page. The reason for adding UTMs is to make it easy to establish the traffic source of each incoming link and to help you learn more about your audience.

How to Create Links with UTMs

Adding the parameters to your unique link enables you to track the referrals using Google Analytics. In order to do this. you’ll need to have Google Analytics installed and verified on your website.

A simple way of creating a UTM link is to use Google URL Builder. Please note, it’s possible to create these links in social media marketing tools such as Hootsuite, but we’ll be focusing on Google’s own URL builder for this article.

Follow the steps below to create the link.
1. Copy the URL of the link you want to use and paste it into the Website URL box on Google URL Builder
2. Enter the social media platform and the source in the Campaign Source Field. For example, FacebookPagePost or TwitterAd
3. Fill in the campaign name to help you identify the campaign in Google Analytics
4. Generate the campaign URL
5. Copy the URL or Convert the URL to a short link
Remember, you’ll need to do this multiple times for each of the social media platforms and the sources (this could be an ad, group post, comment and so on) you’ll be posting the link to. You’ll then need to ensure the right URL is used in the right places to get accurate results in your analytics. It’s advisable to copy all the UTM links you create into a document or a spreadsheet to save having to repeat this process multiple times. Add in any new ones over time so you have them all in one place. You can also share this information with your marketing team and social media manager.

How to Find the Data in Google Analytics

You create the unique URL and posted it and now you’ll want to know how it performed. After waiting a few days or more, head on over your Google Analytics and click Acquisition > Campaigns > All Campaigns. You’ll have a list off all the campaigns you created, allowing you to see which of the sources you’re using is bringing the best results. You can even combine your UTMs with Google Goals and this allows you to track all the traffic sources to all the content and visit opt-ins.

Contact us for assistance with creating your own unique marketing strategy. Call or email and we’ll arrange a suitable time to meet and have a chat about your ideas and requirements.