Let's keep our UTM tracking consistent

In analytics it really is a case of garbage in, garbage out. Most analytics platforms record the source of a session once, and that data is impossible to change once recorded. What that means is that if you ever make a mistake in the spelling of a tracking parameter, or use a non-standard name, your analytics team will live with that mistake forever. For example “facebook”, “face book”, and “FB” are all treated as different sources, so every time you want to report on the performance of Facebook ads, you have to remember to filter for all three of these names.

The best teams adopt a strict naming policy in order to protect against this. By standardizing the names you use and recording them in a spreadsheet, you minimize the chances of a mistake, but also make it easier for analysts to later unearth what names were used and what they mean, making their analysis much easier. When enforcing a naming protocol in a spreadsheet, you can even make the task of constructing the URL easier, because you can use data validation and dropdown menus to make it so you only pick valid values.

The way the spreadsheet works is two fold. One you make a lookup sheet with all valid values for source, medium and campaign. Second you use the CONCATENATE formula to glue everything together into a valid URL at the end, for the ops team to copy and paste into their campaigns. The system I’ve found most useful for adding granularity to the codes used is an audience, creative and message ID system. Each utm_campaign is a combination of these IDs, for example a1-c1-m1 refers to audience 1, creative 1, message 1. This maximises flexibility while also keeping the URLs relatively short and uncomplicated.