UTM builder

What are UTM parameters?

UTM parameters (Urchin Tracking Module parameters) are five standardized tags you append to a URL — utm_source, utm_medium, utm_campaign, utm_term, and utm_content. They do not change what page opens; they are read by analytics tools like Google Analytics, Plausible, or Matomo when someone clicks the link. A tagged link looks like this:

https://example.com/sale?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=spring-sale-2026

What each field does

The builder has five fields, one per UTM parameter. You will fill the first three on almost every link and the last two only when you need them.

• Source (utm_source) — where the click comes from: a specific place like newsletter, instagram, or google. This is the tag your analytics leans on most.
• Medium (utm_medium) — the type of channel, not the place: email, social, cpc for paid search, qr for a printed code. Analytics tools group visits into channels from this field, so keep it to values they recognise (email, cpc, social, referral).
• Campaign (utm_campaign) — the marketing push the link belongs to, like spring-sale-2026. Use the same campaign name across every channel so you can compare them side by side.
• Term (utm_term) — optional, for paid search: the keyword you bid on, like running-shoes.
• Content (utm_content) — optional: tells apart links that share one campaign, like cta-top versus cta-footer, or ad variant A versus B. Ideal for A/B tests.

Only Source, Medium, and Campaign are needed for a useful tagged URL. The builder writes them into the live preview as you type, then lets you copy the result, shorten it, or turn it into a QR code.

Why you need them

Without UTM tags, most of your traffic lands in analytics as “direct” or a vague referrer — you can see that people arrived, but not which email, ad, or post sent them. With consistent tagging you can answer the questions that actually drive budget: which channel brings the most visitors, which campaign converts, and which ad variant wins. If a spring campaign runs on email, Instagram, and paid search at once, UTM tags are the only reliable way to compare the three side by side.

How to build great UTM parameters

• Always lowercase. Analytics tools are case-sensitive — Email and email become two separate rows and split your data.
• Dashes, not spaces. Spaces turn into %20 and make links ugly and error-prone. Write spring-sale, never Spring Sale.
• Source = where, medium = how. utm_source names the platform (google, newsletter, instagram); utm_medium names the channel type (cpc, email, social). Mixing them up is the most common tagging mistake.
• Agree on a naming convention and write it down. Decide once whether it is facebook or fb, how campaigns are named, and share the doc with everyone who creates links.
• Tag external links only. Never add UTM tags to links between pages of your own site — they overwrite the visitor's original attribution mid-session.
• Shorten before sharing. Tagged URLs get long fast. Shortening with the URL shortener hides the tag soup, keeps the data flowing to your analytics, and adds click tracking for the link itself.

Go deeper

This builder handles the mechanics; the strategy is worth ten minutes. Our complete guide to UTM parameters covers how Google Analytics 4 sorts your medium into channels — and where it silently dumps traffic it does not recognise — plus a copyable naming convention for email, paid social, print, podcast, and affiliate links, and which shorteners preserve your tags versus strip them on the redirect.