UTM Attribution for Campaigns

A convention beats a clever scheme

UTM parameters only work if they are applied the same way every time. Email and e-mail, or Summer and summer, become separate rows in every report, and reassembling them later is tedious and error-prone. Analytics tools generally treat these as case-sensitive.

Pick a lowercase convention, write it down, and apply it mechanically. Source is where the click came from, medium is the type of channel, and campaign is the specific push. Keep campaign names stable across channels so one campaign reports as one thing.

Tag every link, not just the main one

A campaign usually has several links: the primary button, a secondary link, and something in the footer. Tagging only the button means the others report as direct traffic, quietly understating the campaign. It is also worth checking that the tagged URL resolves, since a tracking parameter appended to a path that does not exist is still a broken link.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are UTM parameters used for?

They tag campaign links so analytics can attribute traffic and conversions to the specific message, channel and campaign that produced them.

Does UTM capitalisation matter?

Yes. Analytics generally treats tags as case-sensitive, so Email and email become separate entries. Use one lowercase convention consistently.