UTM stands for urchin tracking module, and is a parameter that shows you how a user came to arrive on a landing page. 
 
These modules can tell you the site from which the traffic came, what part of the ad or which kind of ad a user clicked on, the type of link or campaign that brought them there, ad group, and more. To implement them, you’ll come across fields like… 

The tracking template and final URL suffix fields — what are they? 

These are the places you’ll find within the ad platform itself in which you can insert the string of code for your UTM parameters. 

The final URL is the URL for the landing page a user is taken to when clicking on your ad. The final URL suffix is the field in Google Ads where you fill out the parameters that allow you to track users’ origin and activity. 

This component amends the final URL of the ad’s destination to which you’ve applied the UTM — in more basic terms, it’s what adds the UTM verbiage to the end of the URL. 

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In paid search, for example, this can be applied to URLs at the account, campaign, ad, or keyword level. 

The tracking template, meanwhile, is where the URL tracking information lives.  

So why do these matter when you’re marketing your business? 

In many ways, the value of UTMs is self-explanatory: they’re basically a way to better understand how and why people come to your site. Furthermore, they’re so ubiquitous that Google Analytics relies on applied UTM data to present you with accurate attributions. 

By utilizing UTMs, you’ll better understand what’s bringing people to you, and in the process get a granular breakdown over time of what in your marketing efforts is paying off the most. UTMs attribute value to your marketing programs so that you can get a more complete picture. 

This in turn gives you the ability to quantify leads and optimize the channels that are driving the most. 

Getting started 

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Luckily for you, setting up UTMs isn’t rocket science; you can easily do this in Google Ads Editor as well as the corresponding Microsoft Advertising Editor, which are free apps that allow you to create and edit your ads, even offline (although in cases where you aren’t on the internet, you’ll have to wait until you’re online to push changes live). You can also do this from the UI of each platform. 

You can add a final URL suffix at the account, campaign, ad, sitelink, ad group, and keyword level; the process for these each varies slightly, but it’s generally only a few similar, quite simple steps. Google itself has a step-by-step guide to adding final URL suffixes to each of those things in its support section. 

If you’re newly placing UTMs in your campaigns, it will of course take a while before you see clear patterns from which to learn. 

This is pretty much like all digital marketing efforts — after all, first, you have to build up enough volume of interactions for a reliable sample size before patterns can start to become visible and, crucially, trustworthy. 

Once you start to see reliable patterns emerge, then you can begin tweaking different variables in your campaigns to complement these findings. And just like we always emphasize with everything in the digital advertising world, this is just as critical as everything else about UTMs — setting it and forgetting it is inherently limiting. We’re not just gathering insights just to have them; learning from them and scientifically adapting is the whole point!