UTM guidance

What are UTMs?

A UTM (Urchin Tracking Module) is a small snippet of code, or tag, that is added to the end of a URL.

For example:

• the original URL: www.nihr.ac.uk/patients-carers-and-the-public/i-want-to-help-with-research/research-champions.htm  

• the URL with a UTM: www.nihr.ac.uk/patients-carers-and-the-public/i-want-to-help-with-research/research-champions.htm?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=nhs75

UTMs allow us to track how many people click on that specific link, and therefore get more detailed information on whether people are coming to our website from the different platforms we are using.

When should I use a UTM?

UTMs are beneficial in situations where you want to track, analyse, and compare different ways of driving people to your URL. You should use UTMs when you:

• want to track and analyse where people are coming from 

• are sending people back to a site where you can access the analytics

For example, you might use UTMs to find out whether:

• one social media platform generated more traffic than another

• users are engaging with a link in an email

• people are clicking on a print advert

How should I generate a UTM?

All UTMs should be generated using the spreadsheet for the site you want to link to:

• Corporate site UTM spreadsheet (nihr.ac.uk/)

• NIHR Evidence site UTM spreadsheet (evidence.nihr.ac.uk/)

• Be Part of Research UTM spreadsheet (bepartofresearch.nihr.ac.uk/)

You will then need to fill in information in columns A - G, and the URL will automatically be generated in column H of the spreadsheet.

• columns A - C must be filled in

• columns D - E are optional, depending on what you are tracking

Column A - Campaign guidance

This should be the name of your campaign. This is usually related to the link or content you want to promote. It should be specific and unique. Eg don't use something like "research".

If you’re unsure you can check it hasn’t been used on the spreadsheet before!

Campaign names should:

• be in lowercase

• use hyphens instead of spaces

• avoid other special characters eg %, ~, * 

Some examples of campaign names:

• For the Your Path in Research campaign: ypir-22

• For promoting making a difference stories: making-a-difference-23

We can create multiple UTMs for the different places you’re planning to promote your link all using a single campaign.

For annual / recurring campaigns

For recurring campaigns we should keep things as unique as possible, therefore you should include year in the UTM.

Eg for an annual campaign call "Lets use UTMs" something like "lets-use-utms-2023" would be good, and you can use the same prefix the following year, but just update the date.

For our regular newsletters

Each newsletter has a Source with a two letter identifier that should also be used as part of the campaign name, along with the year/month of each issue. Eg "in-2020-12" would be a campaign name for the Industry newsletter issued in December 2020. When using dates, use reverse date format e.g YYYY-MM-DD. This means you can easily sort data so it's grouped by year/month when you come to analysing your UTMs later.

Column B - Source

This should reflect where you will be placing your link. Eg "facebook" or "twitter-industry" or the name of another website where the link will be placed.

The source should always be chosen from the drop-down where possible, unless a partner will be using the link.

If a partner will be placing a link on their website, or using via their social media you can use "partner-partnername" - using the "partner-" prefix will allow us to easily collate data in reports - eg if multiple partners have shared a link for your campaign.

Column C - Medium

This is higher level details on how we've used the link.

For example:

• cpc - cost per click - when we've paid to promote something, whether it's a promoted tweet, or paid search terms

• email - where we've included something in an email newsletter

• social - organic posts on social media

• print - where we've placed a shortended URL on printed materials such as fliers that links to the UTM

• referral - when we've placed a link on another website

Column D - Term

This is typically used for tracking keywords in paid search campaigns. It helps identify the specific terms that triggered the link click. In most cases you don’t need to fill this information in.

Column E - Content

You only need to fill this information in if you want to compare between two pieces of content that are being used in the same place. Eg if you had two tweets on @NIHRresearch with slightly different calls to action, you would use this parameter to differentiate between the different versions.

It can be helpful when A/B testing or testing multiple CTAs within the same campaign.

Column F - URL

This is the URL you want to track.

Column G - Campaign URL

This is the link for you to use in your campaign. It will be automatically generated.

How can I evaluate a UTM?

On Google Analytics 4, select the date range you want to analyse and go the reports section.

Option 1 - via traffic acquisition

This will pull up only the traffic that has arrived via your UTMs

Reports > Acquisition > Traffic acquisition > Session Campaign > Add secondary dimension > Select “Traffic source” and then “First user source / medium” >

In the search bar, search for your campaign name.

You will then be able to see the sources and mediums for your campaign in the second column. These should directly correlate to the sources and mediums used when creating your UTMs.

Step-by-step guide

Follow the steps in the screenshot below:

The steps shown in the screenshot are:

1. Click on Reports

2. Click on Acquisition

3. Click on Traffic acquisition

4. Under the chart and search bar, click on the drop-down and select 'Session campaign'

5. Click on the '+' symbol next to this drop down to add a secondary dimension. Select 'Traffic source' then 'First user source / medium'

6. Search for your campaign name in the search bar

Option 2 - via Engagement

This will pull up all traffic to aa given page, including people who have used your UTMs

Alternatively, you can go to:

Reports > Engagement > Pages and screens > Add secondary dimension > Select “Traffic source” and then “First user source / medium” > In the search bar add the URL of the page you’re UTM was linking to

Step-by-step guide

Follow the steps in the screenshot below:

The steps shown in the screenshot are:

1. Click on Reports

2. Click on Engagement

3. Click on Pages and screens

4. Click on the '+' symbol next to 'Page path and screen class' to add a secondary dimension. Select 'Traffic source' then 'First user source / medium'

5. Search for your campaign name in the search bar

I want to create a UTM for a different NIHR site?

Please make a copy of this template, you can then use this to generate UTMs for the site you are working on.

Why are UTMs better than other types of track link?

UTMs link up with Google Analytics. This means we can find out more information about users than we could using something like a bit.ly link.

A bit.ly link will tell you how many clicks there are on that link, and you could create different links for different platforms, but with UTMs we can get even more information. For example, we can understand how long people arriving from different sources spend on the site, how often they bounce and what these visitors go on to look at.

Without UTMs Google Analytics will detect some information about our incoming traffic but it is not perfect and it can lack detail. Using UTMs also allows us to get even more information, for example, rather than just knowing that users came from Twitter, we can understand which of our Twitter channels they came from.