What is a UTM parameter?
- UTM parameter
- A UTM parameter is a tag added to the end of a link that tells an analytics tool where the click came from, recording the source, the medium and the campaign.
What UTM parameter means in practice
Five tags exist and three carry the weight. Source names the place, medium names the type of traffic, campaign names the activity.
They are entirely self-reported. Whatever you type is what the report says, which makes them powerful and fragile in equal measure.
Case sensitivity breaks more reports than any other cause. Facebook and facebook become two rows, and a quarter's data splits in half.
Write the convention down somewhere shared before the second person starts tagging links. Lowercase everything and use the same separator.
What people get wrong
Tagging one postcard link, start to finish
Say an HVAC company prints a QR code on a spring tune-up postcard. The code points here: example.com/tune-up?utm_source=postcard&utm_medium=print&utm_campaign=spring_tuneup_2026.
Read it piece by piece, starting at the question mark, which opens the tags. Source says where the click came from, which is the postcard. Medium says what kind of channel that is, print. Campaign names the push it belongs to, so the postcard, the matching email and the matching ad can all be grouped later. Ampersands join the tags.
The same campaign's email link would use utm_source=newsletter and utm_medium=email, with the campaign name identical down to the underscore. That last part is where a shared naming sheet pays for itself. If one person types spring_tuneup_2026 and another types SpringTuneUp, the report shows two campaigns with half the results each.
Click it yourself before it goes to print
Tagged links break in a few predictable ways, and every one of them is invisible until you test. Before anything is printed or sent, click the final link and watch what happens to the address bar.
Redirects are the first culprit, because if your site forwards the short address to a longer one, some setups drop everything after the question mark. The page loads fine and the tags are gone.
A second question mark is the next: if the page address already contains one, extra tags must be joined with an ampersand. Everything after a second mark is usually ignored.
Email tools cause the third. Many add their own tags automatically, and depending on the setting they either overwrite yours or double them up. Pick one method and turn the other off.
Finally, open your analytics real-time view, click the link, and confirm the visit appears with the right source and campaign. A QR code on 5,000 postcards can't be edited after Thursday's print run.
How GreetKeeper handles it
Tags travel with a web visit and stop at the phone. Someone who clicks a tagged link and then dials leaves no tag behind.
Asking closes part of that gap. A caller who mentions a campaign gives you something the parameter could not carry.
Pairing a tagged landing page with its own tracking number is the more reliable approach, and the call then arrives already labeled.
UTM questions
Which tags are required?
Source at a minimum, with medium and campaign close behind. Term and content are optional and mostly useful for paid search.
Do they affect SEO?
Not if used on inbound links from elsewhere. Tagging your own internal links is the version that causes problems, and it is a reporting problem rather than a ranking one.
Can I use them offline?
Indirectly, by pointing a printed short link at a tagged destination. A phone number on the same material needs its own tracking to match.
Hear it take one of your calls
Two minutes, your own scenario, no card.