UTM link builder

What are UTM tags?

UTM tags are short labels on the end of a link. When someone clicks it, Google Analytics reads the labels and records where the visit came from. Without them, a click from an email or a WhatsApp chat often arrives with nothing to say where it came from, and gets counted as direct.

There are five tags. Source and medium are the two that matter most, and the other three add detail when you need it.

• utm_source: where the link is, like facebook, google or newsletter.
• utm_medium: the type of link, like paid, social or email.
• utm_campaign: the offer or push it’s for, like boiler_service or teeth_whitening.
• utm_content: which ad or link, when you have more than one, like video_1.
• utm_term: the search words, mostly for Google search ads, like emergency_plumber.

yourbusiness.co.uk/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=paid&utm_campaign=boiler_service

A simple naming system

Tags are case sensitive, and every spelling counts as a different source. “Facebook”, “facebook” and “fb” show up as three separate rows in your reports. Three rules keep everything tidy:

• Lower case, always.
• Underscores, not spaces: boiler_service, not “boiler service”.
• The same words every time. Keep a short list of your sources and mediums, and copy from it.

The presets above follow these rules, so tapping one is the quickest way to stay consistent.

Where to see the results

In Google Analytics 4, go to Reports, then Acquisition, then Traffic acquisition. Change the first column to Session source / medium, and each tagged link shows as its own row, like facebook / paid or newsletter / email. Switch it to Session campaign to compare campaigns.

Analytics shows visits, not jobs. To see which visits turned into enquiries and paid work, the tags need to be saved with each lead in your CRM. Then you can count jobs per campaign, and the Facebook ads ROAS calculator shows what each one is worth.

UTM parameters for Facebook and Instagram ads

Meta has a way to tag every ad without building a link for each one. Switch the builder to Meta ads and copy this line:

utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=paid&utm_campaign={{campaign.name}}&utm_content={{ad.name}}

In Ads Manager, open the ad, find Destination and paste the line into the URL parameters box (on some accounts it sits further down, under Tracking). Your plain page link goes in Website URL as normal. On every click, Meta swaps {{campaign.name}} and {{ad.name}} for the real names of your campaign and ad, so Analytics shows which ad brought each visit.

UTM tags tell Analytics where a visit came from. The Meta Pixel tells Meta what people did once they arrived. Check yours with the Facebook Pixel checker.

Tag your Google Business Profile link

Clicks on the website button in your Google Business Profile usually show up in Analytics as google / organic, mixed in with everyone who found you through a Google search. Tag the website link in your profile with the Google Business Profile preset and those visits get their own row as google / gbp, so you can see what your profile does on its own.

QR codes on flyers, vans and posters

Print can be tracked too. Tag the link with the QR code or print preset, give each item its own campaign, like van, flyer or business_card, then make your QR code from the tagged link. Scans then show up in Analytics under that name. Check the code with your phone before anything goes to print.

Want this done for you? We run Facebook and Instagram ads for service businesses with every link tagged and every enquiry followed through to the job it turned into. See how we run paid social.