Business & Retail Tech

What is UTM Parameters?

Quick answer

Short tags added to the end of a web link that tell analytics tools where a visitor came from, such as which campaign, source, or ad.

UTM Parameters, explained

UTM stands for Urchin Tracking Module, named after Urchin, the web analytics company Google acquired in 2005 whose technology became Google Analytics. A UTM-tagged link adds parameters such as utm_source, utm_medium, and utm_campaign. When someone clicks the link, analytics tools record those values with the visit.

For example, a hotel promoting a monsoon offer could use different UTM tags for its email newsletter, an Instagram post, and a partner website. Reports would then show which channel brought the most bookings. Consistent naming is essential, since mixing labels such as Email and email splits the data. UTM parameters should never contain personal information like email addresses, because links and analytics reports are often shared or stored in many places.

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