UTM Builder

UTM Builder - Free Google URL Builder to Generate UTM Codes

Fill all the required fields (marked with *) and other campaign information. A final URL with UTM codes will be automatically created. Copy the generated URL and use it in your campaigns.

e.g. newsletter, twitter, google, etc.
e.g. email, social, cpc, etc.
e.g. promotion, sale, etc.
Any call-to-action or headline, e.g. buy-now.
Keywords for your paid search campaigns
Generated UTM tracking URL

Fill the required fields like Website URL, UTM Source, UTM Medium, UTM Campaign and the optional fields UTM Content and UTM Term.

The URL builder will automatically generate your UTM URL. Copy the generated URL and use it in your campaigns.

 

Terminus UTM Builder

Need an All-in-one UTM Builder and Link Management Solution?

Terminus is used daily by companies of all sizes, from one person marketing agency to a team of hundreds in billion dollar global enterprises.

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Customize your URL builder with your own naming conventions.

All-in-one UTM Builder

Looking for a Campaign URL builder with a comprehensive UTM conventions support?

Terminus is designed for enterprise-grade link management for UTM and custom defined parameters

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If you need to take your UTM strategy to the next level, read on.

UTM Builder: What is it and why you need it?

Even though adding UTM parameters to a URL looks simple, the process can be highly error prone when you consider wide variety of URLs as well as doing the same step many times for a lot of URLs. It's best to use a campaign URL builder that generates these URLs for you.

In the following sections, we'll dive into various parts of a URL and how UTM parameters fit into them.

What are UTM parameters / UTM tags / UTM codes?

Some call them UTM parameters, some UTM codes, while others prefer UTM tags. But they all mean the same. We'll stick to UTM parameters since Google does as well.

UTM parameters are a set of five parameters: utm_campaign, utm_medium, utm_source, utm_content, and utm_term.

Let's go through each of them in brief.

UTM Parameter Description
UTM Source utm_source You can use this to identify the website, app, or any other source like newsletter, etc.
UTM Medium utm_medium It specifies the name of the marketing medium, e.g. social, cpc, email, etc.
UTM Campaign utm_campaign This is the name of your marketing effort. In short, the name of your campaign, e.g. promo, sale, etc.
UTM Content utm_content This is used to identify the context in the which the link was clicked. It could be the name of your CTA (Call to Action) or the headline of an ad. e.g. buy-now, etc
UTM Term utm_term This is used to identify the keyword in paid search ads. It's better to not use it for anything else. e.g. shoes, etc.

These parameters can be added to any URL. Let's say you have a URL 

https://www.example.com

After adding UTM parameters to this URL, it will look something like this. 

https://www.example.com/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=sale&utm_content=signup

You can then share these UTM tracked (tagged) URLs on various channels. These channels can include:

  • Social networks like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn
  • Email campaigns like newsletter, drip, purchases, cold email, etc.
  • Ad campaigns including search, display, retargeting
  • Print media like flyers, billboards, visiting cards, promotional material, etc.

Why do we need these UTM parameters anyway?

Let me ask you a question? How do you think Google Analytics knows where your visitors are coming from?

If you guessed browser Referrer, you'd be right.

But the Referrer is not always set due to many reasons, including:

  • Bookmarked URL
  • Direct typing the URL in the browser
  • Mobile apps
  • Email clients
  • Going from HTTPS to HTTP website
  • and many other reasons

So if you cannot rely on the Referrer, you need to take matters in your own hands. That's when you add UTM parameters to the URL. They help you minimize your Direct visits.

Who detects these UTM parameters?

Many analytics tools besides Google Analytics automatically detect UTM parameters in the URLs. This includes Mixpanel and Kissmetrics, the two popular funnel-based analytics systems.

Does the order of UTM tags matter?

No, the order does not matter. All the UTM tags in the URL are processed in the order they appear in the URL. This processing by analytics script is almost instantaneous which makes the order irrelevant.

What should you consider when building UTM codes?

  • Never add UTM tags to internal links
  • Try to add UTM tags to all your campaigns in a consistent manner
  • Be consistent with the case. It's best to use lowercase to avoid any confusion.
  • Use a Campaign URL builder to make sure that your URLs are built correctly
  • Use the same values everytime. For example, if you use twitter, then don't use tw or Twitter or other variations. A UTM generator tool can help you keep track of this.
  • Don't use spaces. Use dashes or underscores based on complexity and your own specific analytics needs. It's not that simple!
  • Clearly define your UTM strategy and follow UTM parameters best practices
  • When you have multiple data points in a single UTM, use dashes to separate them. For example, weekly-2022_12_31 uses a dash to separate weekly and 2022_12_31. If you need to capture lot of data points in UTMs, consider using UTM Conventions

How can I add UTM codes to a form submission?

UTM codes can also greatly enrich your lead generation efforts. Won't it be great if you could find out exactly where each of your lead came from? All you need to do is capture the UTM codes and referrer whenever someone submits your lead/contact forms. This will save UTM information along with the lead and you'll know which of your campaigns are working.

Different UTM Builder Options

When you create a many UTM links, it's good to keep track of them. You should also have a way to organize your UTM parameters so that you know which of them are used with which of your campaigns. You have a few options:

1. Basic URL builder

These are the simplest and most common types of URL builders you'll find. For example, the UTM builder above or the Google URL builder can build your UTM links quickly.

Pros:

  • Easy to use
  • Free

Cons:

  • Error prone
  • Not always easy to remember what to use
  • Difficult to enforce consistency across teams
  • Does not shorten URLs automatically for social and other such campaigns
  • Cannot handle bulk building
When to use it: One-off URL building where you only build 2 to 5 URLs per month.

2. UTM spreadsheets

When you need to save your past UTM links and refer them in the future, you can use a UTM spreadsheet. You can use either Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel to build your spreadsheet. You can even compare among the many free UTM spreadsheet templates and pick the one that works best for you.

Pros:

  • Can save your past URLs and have a central location to refer to for your team
  • You can use the same spreadsheet for multiple campaigns
  • Fairly easy to use, but not as easy as the basic URL builder
  • Free

Cons:

  • Highly error prone and fragile
  • Easy to break and overwrite formulas
  • Cannot handle URL encoding well
  • Does not shorten URLs automatically for social and other such campaigns
  • Cannot shorten URLs automatically
  • Highly dependent on one or two people who know how to configure the spreadsheet
  • Difficult to manage as they grow larger and your requirements complex.
When to use it: When you build around 5 to 20 URLs per month

3. UTM Tag Management Software

A better way to organize UTM links is to use a UTM builder and management tool which can greatly simplify your UTM management even for large teams and complext UTM strategy. These can handle highly complex requirements than the basic URL builder or the UTM spreadsheet.

Pros:

  • Centralized location to manage all URLs and UTMs
  • Enforce complex UTM taxonomy requirements
  • Have consistent UTM parameters across your company
  • Auto-shortening of all URLs
  • Tag URLs in bulk
  • Fine-grained user permissions depending on the role
  • Many more features like QR codes, vanity URLs, click reports and more.

Cons:

  • Not free
  • Requires initial one-time setup
When to use it: When you build more than 20 URLs per month or have a team collaborating on building UTM links.

How do I create UTM URLs in bulk?

It's possible to use spreadsheets to create UTM links in bulk. But it generally involves a lot of manual work. You need to copy all the data that is identical and change the columns that are not. Since most of the time there are only a few columns that change, you can use a UTM builder that will automatically create the UTM links for you in bulk. Here's how it works:

Create UTM links in bulk. Fast and easy.

Designed for highly productive teams.

Bulk UTM Builder