UTM Guide

Importance

UTMs are a strategic tool for improving both web analytics and the measurement of the Illinois brand. By creating UTMs in a standardized format, we can:

• Track traffic more accurately
• Measure the impact of specific marketing channels
• Compare performance across platforms
• Make informed decisions about future campaigns and strategies

Using standardized UTMs at Illinois helps leadership see how Illinois messaging resonates with audiences, ensuring that brand storytelling is effective and aligned.

UTMs are also easy to use, making it a quick and effective improvement for MarCom teams to implement.

Target Audience

• Content Creators/Writers
• Marketing
• Social Media
• Web Dev/IT

Definitions

• UTM: Acronym for “Urchin Tracking Module”. Commonly referred to simply as “UTMs.”
• UTM Parameters: Tags added to a URL to track traffic and campaign performance. The five parameters are:
  • Source (utm_source): Platform/vendor
  • Medium (utm_medium): Channel type
  • Campaign (utm_campaign): Marketing initiative
  • Content (utm_content): Optional; differentiates versions of ads or links
  • Term (utm_term): Optional; paid search keywords
• Traffic Acquisition Report: Report in Google Analytics showing where website or app visitors are coming from.

What is a UTM?

A UTM is a URL with snippets of text (parameters) added to the end. These snippets tell your website’s analytics platform:

• Where traffic is coming from
• Which campaign generated the most clicks
• Which social platform drives the highest conversions
• How different channels compare in performance

The next section provides instructions on how to create UTMs and use them, but first we’ll discuss the components of the UTMs: the parameters.

Parameters

There are five possible parameters you can add to a UTM. For consistency, and to make sure the UTMs work, they should be added in the same order every time and entered in lowercase. The parameters are presented, in order, below. Check here for a list of all recommended sources and mediums at Illinois.

Source (utm_source) — Required

The source is the platform, site, publisher or vendor where your link is being posted — the referrer of your traffic.

• For social media: Use the platform you’re posting on as the source (e.g., “facebook” is the source for Facebook posts, “linkedin” for LinkedIn posts).
• For email: Use your email vendor as the source (e.g., “massmail” or “emailplus” for emails sent through Webtools).
• Social and email should not be customized with modifiers (e.g., posting on the ACES Facebook page would NOT be “aces_facebook” — Use the campaign parameter for custom information).
• For websites: Use the subdomain’s website name. This can be custom, and underscores can be used to join words together (e.g., “aces” is the source for links posted on aces.illinois.edu).

Examples of sources include:

• facebook
• instagram
• massmail
• emailplus
• google
• {your website name}

Note that all UTM terms are in lowercase and have special characters spelled out (e.g., Email+ becomes “emailplus”). Use underscores to join words together (e.g. giesbusiness.illinois.edu would be “gies_business” — shorter is better). Underscores are preferable because they map easily to Google Analytics, preserve readability and don’t break links.

Medium (utm_medium) — Required

The medium describes the type of channel you’re using. This can map directly to your marketing channels in Google Analytics if you use the appropriate terms. In the list of recommended sources and mediums at Illinois, the medium section tells you which medium maps to what GA4 channel and when to use each medium.

Examples of mediums include:

• email
• social
• referral
• paid_search

Campaign (utm_campaign) — Required

The campaign tells you what marketing initiative you are supporting. Unlike in source and medium, a campaign parameter is where more customizations can be utilized. For example, if you sent out a massmail, you could use “source: massmail” and “medium: email,” but campaign would tell you the marketing activity, audience, fiscal year and any additional qualifiers.

• Campaign naming structure (except for emails):
  • Marketing Activity
  • Fiscal Year (fy##)
  • Additional Qualifiers (optional)
    • Audience
    • Date (can be general like season or month and year, or a specific date of posting)

Example for a Paid Social post on Instagram about Athletics:

• https://www.illinois.edu/?utm_source=instagram&utm_medium=paid_social&utm_campaign=illini_athletics_fy26_fans_discount_20260109

The part in bold is the full campaign. Note that the original URL is in lowercase and ends before the question mark.

• For emails, create the campaign using the following components:
  • Audience
  • Email Type
  • Fiscal Year (fy##)
  • Additional Qualifiers
    • Email descriptor
    • Date (YYYYMMDD)

Reference the list of recommended campaign elements at Illinois for audience, email type and additional qualifiers.

Example for an email to students about a past event (the part in bold is the campaign):

• https://www.illinois.edu/?utm_source=emailplus&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=student_event_fy26_welcome_week_recap_20250901

Content (utm_content) — Optional

Content differentiates versions of ads or links. It can be used in A/B testing where the previous UTM parameters are otherwise the same. If you use content, follow the same naming conventions as the other parameters: lowercase, separate words with an underscore and no special characters.

Term (utm_term) — Optional

Term is used for paid search keywords that you are targeting. List the short- or long-tail keyword in lowercase characters, separated by underscores, with no special characters.

How to Create and Use UTMs

Creating a UTM is simple as it follows the same formula every time. You should be ready to fill out the following parameters in this order:

• Source
• Medium
• Campaign
• Content (optional)
• Term (optional)

If you are unsure what to put for each parameter, reference the Illinois UTM Guidance list. You will construct it using this formula:

• Your base URL: https://{your subdomain here}.illinois.edu
• Source parameter and term: /?utm_source={your source here}
• Medium parameter and term: &utm_medium={your medium here}
• Campaign parameter and term: &utm_campaign={your campaign here}
• OPTIONAL — Content parameter and term: &utm_content={your content here}
• OPTIONAL — Term parameter and term: &utm_term={your term here}

All together, this is what the final product will look like:

• https://{your subdomain here}.illinois.edu/?utm_source={your source here}&utm_medium={your medium here}&utm_campaign={your campaign here}&utm_content={your content here}&utm_term={your term here}

You already know to use lowercase and underscores, but here are some additional tips:

• After your base URL, you should use a forward slash and question mark to start your source UTM parameter (e.g., “/?”).
• Each parameter after source should be started with an ampersand (&).
• Your terms should be connected with underscores because if there are any actual spaces, the link will be broken.

Build a Report with UTM Data

Once you’ve started constructing and sending UTMs, you should look at your analytics to monitor your traffic. Note when you started using UTMs and for what purpose (this could be done using a simple spreadsheet). After at least one week, you can compare the UTM traffic to traffic before you started using UTMs.

You can do this by building a Traffic Acquisition report. This report shows where your website or app visitors are coming from, broken down by traffic sources, mediums and campaigns. It shows new and returning users, as opposed to the User Acquisition report, which only shows new users.

There are two ways to build a Traffic Acquisition report:

Method 1: Use the prebuilt report

In Google Analytics, access the report under Reports in the left-hand menu bar, Life cycle, Acquisition, Traffic acquisition. If the report is not part of your standard set-up, you can access it in the Report Library.

1. Adjust the time frame in the top-right corner to your preference.
2. Customize the report to your liking using the pencil icon in the top-right corner.
3. Use the table drop-down to go between the Session channel, source, medium and campaign information.
   • Note: You cannot view Content and Term dimensions in this report.
4. You can adjust how many rows you can see at the top-right of the table, under “Rows per page.”
5. You can add an additional dimension to break down data by clicking the blue plus sign next to the table’s primary dimension (the first column).
6. You can filter and search for specific values using the “Search” bar at the top of the table.

Method 2: Create an Exploration

1. If you’d rather construct your own report, and/or you need to view Content and Term information, you will need to build an Exploration.
2. In Google Analytics, go to Explore in the left-hand menu bar and create a Free form exploration.
3. Update the Exploration Name and Date Range in the “Variables” column on the left.
4. In that same column, add Dimensions for: Session source/medium, Session campaign, Session manual term and Session manual ad content. In Metrics, add Sessions. This exploration is session-scoped as opposed to event-scoped.
5. In the “Settings” column, add the four dimensions to Rows.
6. Add the sessions metric to Values.

You will notice over time that your direct traffic is “declining” because it is being redirected into properly attributed sources. On the other hand, your UTM traffic will increase.

FAQ

Besides adding tags to my URL, do I have to set anything up in Google Analytics/Google Tag Manager/anywhere else?

No, you just need to have an analytics tracking code on your website. By adding the UTM tags to a URL, the website will note when anyone clicks that link. The UTM parameters (source, medium, etc.) will tell you where users are coming from.

Contact

• Maggie Evenson, Analytics Coordinator, evenson@illinois.edu