The Complete Guide to UTM Codes: How to Track Every Link and All the Traffic From Social Media

Quick: which social network is bringing in the most traffic to your website right now?

It’s OK if you don’t know off the top of your head. (I don’t memorize that sort of stuff either!) But wouldn’t it be great if you could pull up the answer in just a few seconds whenever your boss asks you this?

What about revenue broken down by social network?

What about the percentage of traffic generated by social versus email?

You can track it all, and you can track it for free: all you need are Google Analytics and a little bit of UTM link codes.

I’d love to share with you how that’s done. =)

What are UTM codes, and why are they so important?A Quick-and-Simple Overview of UTM Codes

“UTM” stands for “Urchin tracking module.” Urchin Software Corporation was acquired by Google in 2005, and their software laid the groundwork for what we now know as Google Analytics.

UTM codes are bits of text you can add to a link that tell Google Analytics (as well as other analytics tools) a little bit more information about each link. Here’s a sample of what one looks like:

Why are UTMs important?

If you’re spending a lot of time in social media, you might be publishing hundreds of new links per day.

UTM codes help you track the performance of each of those links so you can see where your traffic is coming from.

You can use the UTM variables within the link to track general information, like how much traffic you’re getting from social media. You can use them to track the fine details also, like how much revenue you get from your Twitter bio.

There are many, many ways to track links with UTM codes.

And the good news: If you settle on a strategic way to tag your links now, you’ll save yourself a lot of time (and headache!) in the future.

I’m about to share an approach to UTM tagging that has been especially helpful for me when it comes to measuring the success of my links, and I hope it will be for you, too. =)

But before we jump into that, let’s quickly set our expectations for what a well-tagged URL can accomplish for you.

The 3 Essential Questions a UTM Link Can Answer

When all UTM’ed up, a link should be able to help you answer some basic questions about your web traffic:

1. Where is the traffic coming from?
2. How is it getting to me?
3. Why is it coming to me?

Essentially, UTM codes tell the story of how your traffic is coming to you.

This works by using three (or four) elements called “UTM parameters,” which we’ll cover in detail below:

• Source
• Medium
• Content (optional)
• Campaign

That’s why a UTM-tagged URL looks like this:

https://buffer.com/email-courses/actionable-social-media-strategies/?utm_source=buffer&utm_medium=post-original&utm_content=-image&utm_campaign=25-social-media-strategies

See all those “utm_” bits? That’s where we’re labeling the traffic that comes from this link.

Of course, typing that long string of characters is pretty scary, so most peopleuse URL generators. These nifty tools let you plug in the values for each of those parameters, and then the tools do the magic of stringing them together into a nice URL. Some popular generators include:

• Google’s URL Builder
• Effin Amazing’s Chrome extension
• The Buffer in-app link shortener

The UTM parameters, in turn, tell Google Analytics how to sort your incoming traffic. If you’re tracking your links across social media (and across the rest of your digital content!), you’ll get a lot more goodness out of Google Analytics’ Acquisitions features—because you’re giving GA more to track.

Here are the different places to find UTM information within your Google Analytics dashboard:

1. Acquisition > All Traffic > Source/Medium
2. Acquisition > Campaigns > All Campaigns

Now, let’s look at how to use UTM codes and parameters in your social media links.

How to use UTM codes and parameters in your social media links

With UTM codes, we’re trying to help Google Analytics tell us the story of how our social media traffic is getting to us. We’re trying to answer three questions:

1. Where’s the traffic coming from?
2. How is it coming to me?
3. Why is it coming to me?

The good news is: choosing your UTM parameters is as simple as answering those questions for every link you publish. Let’s look at how that works together.

1. How to use the “Source” UTM parameter in social media

tl;dr — You can use the name of the social platform you’re sharing the link to (e.g., Twitter, Facebook) as the “source” UTM tag.

The “source” parameter is all about answering the question, “Where is my traffic coming from?”

By adding the parameter &utm_source= to your links, you’re tagging every visit that comes from that link in a way that says, “this visit came from such and such.”

So, your “Source” UTM parameter will simply state where the traffic is coming from.

Now, I say, “simply,” but there are a multitude of ways that this could be done. For example, if you were tweeting to your followers about a sweet blog post you just wrote, you could answer the question “Where is the traffic going to come from?” a few ways.

• It’s coming from you, the sharer.
• It’s coming from Twitter, the place where it’s being shared.
• It’s coming from your followers, the ones reading it.

There are all kinds of ways you could think about this.

But Google recommends using the “source” field to describe the “referrer,” or the entity that’s actually sending the traffic your way. In this example, a good source tag would be simply “Twitter.” There are a few good reasons for this:

• You will eventually want to track ALL of your traffic from Twitter in one place (simplicity FTW!)
• In the case of social media links, this makes even more sense. If someone shares or Retweets your links, then the traffic isn’t really coming from you anymore­—but it’s still coming from the same social media platform!

In social media, I’ve found the simplest approach is to use the social platform you’re sharing the link to as the “source” UTM tag. When I share a link to Facebook are tagged with “&utm_source=facebook” =)

2. How to use the “Medium” UTM parameter in social media

tl;dr — Consider setting “social” as your medium tag for all links shared on social media.

This parameter is all about answering the question, “How is my traffic coming to me?”

By adding the parameter &utm_medium= to your links, you’re tagging every visit that comes from that link in a way that says, “this visit came via _______.”

This is a little less straightforward than the source tag we looked at, because for every way to describe where the traffic is coming from, there are probably 10 ways to describe how it’s getting to you!

That’s why it can be helpful to establish some UTM conventions up front. If you give yourself a general list of options for the “medium” tag, then this part of the link-tracking process can be a lot easier.

Google suggests using a general name of the marketing medium for this parameter on their URL builder:

That helps keep it simple! For tagging UTM codes on social media, a really simple approach is to always use “social” as your medium. You don’t have to do this, but I’ve found it makes it very easy to sort the traffic in my high-level marketing channels—especially if I’m taking Google’s advice on this when I’m tagging other links.

Just FYI, here are some other “medium” tags you might consider for non-social links:

• Email
• Blog
• Blog-guest (for when you’re guest posting on an influencer’s blog)
• Blog-syndicated (for when you’re sharing your articles with syndication sites)

3. How to use the “Campaign” UTM parameter in social media

Now for the last of the questions: why is the traffic coming to you?

This is what the “campaign” UTM parameter is all about. By adding the parameter &utm_campaign= to your links, you’re tagging every visit that comes from that link in a way that says, “this traffic is coming from this effort.”

There are SO MANY ways to use this tag! And the beauty of it is that if you’re consistent with your source and medium UTM parameters, you have a lot of flexibility when it comes to tracking campaigns.

Here are a few ways to think of using the campaign parameter:

• Use it for special promotions. Doing a new product launch? Try “launch-[Product Name]” as your campaign.
• Use it for personas. If a post is crafted especially for one buyer persona, you may want to consider tagging that link accordingly. For example, you could try “manager-mandy” or “practitioner-pam” as your campaign values.
• Use it for business objectives. Is that blog post you’re tweeting about going to generate leads, sales, or thought leadership? You might try using campaign values like, “contact,” “complete,” or “lead.”

Note: be empathetic with your tags, as your readers can see them in the URL bar of their browsers. =)

How to track your social media UTMs in Google Analytics

And once you’ve been tagging and tracking your links with UTMs, you can get a really good feel for where your traffic is coming from by hopping into Google Analytics.

Google Analytics makes it really smooth for organizing and analyzing these UTMs. You can see UTM campaign, source, and medium all from the same Google Analytics dashboard.

Here’s where:

1. Go to Acquisition > Campaigns > All Campaigns
2. Click to view the Primary Dimension of Campaign, Source, or Medium

Case Study: Using UTM parameters to tell the story of Star Wars

Remember the end of Star Wars, when Luke Skywalker and the Rebel Alliance race to blow up the Death Star before the evil Galactic Empire destroys the rebel base?

What if we told that story . . . with UTM tags?

Luke Skywalker is flying to the Death Star. Let’s assume Luke represents web traffic coming from a tagged link. We’ll make Deathstar.is the target URL the rebels are sending “traffic” to.

The source of that traffic? That would be the Rebel Base. Which means that if we were to express that in UTM terms, we’d have . . .

So we know that the Death Star is where Luke Skywalker (the traffic) is flying to, and we know the source of that traffic (Rebel Base). Now . . . how’s Luke getting there? In his trusty X-wing fighter, that’s how!

Now, what if we added that to our UTM story? It would look a little something like this . . .

So we know that Luke Skywalker (the traffic) is flying to the Death Star (the destination URL). He’s flying from the rebel base (the source) in his trusty X-wing fighter (the medium).

But why? Why is that traffic coming to the Death Star in the first place?

Because the Rebels want to save their base and later save the galaxy from the likes of Darth Vader.

So, if we were to sum up this story in UTM tags, we would need a campaign tag to tie this all together. We’ll choose “stop-darth-vader” for this one. =)

So, here’s the story of Star Wars in UTM-tagged URL form!

• Destination URL = where the traffic’s going (the Death Star)
• Source UTM tag = where the traffic’s coming from (the rebel base)
• Medium UTM tag = how the traffic’s getting there (X-wing fighters)
• Campaign UTM tag = why the traffic’s going there (to stop Darth Vader)

Quick recap on UTM parameters in social media

We’re about to jump into how to track these in Google Analytics, but first, let’s do a super-quick recap on what we’ve covered:

• The “source” UTM tag = the referrer (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.)
• The “medium” UTM tag = how the traffic gets to you (for most social media links, this will just be “social”)
• The “campaign” UTM tag = why the traffic is coming to you (launch, persona, promotion, etc.)

Here’s a quick tip for Buffer for Business users: you can automate your UTM tags in Buffer! Here’s how.

First, go to “Settings” in your Buffer account and select “Link Shortening.”

Then, scroll down toward the bottom. You’ll see the “Google Analytics Campaign Tracking” section. You’re just two steps away from customizing your Buffer links:

1. Toggle that “Enable Campaign Tracking” switch to “Yep.”
2. Click the “Customize Campaign Tracking” button.

Behold, your own custom Google Analytics tagging options! =) I’ve got my Twitter account set up so that every link I tweet through buffer is tagged accordingly:

• Source = twitter
• Medium = social
• Campaign = jeffrey-the-red (a form of my Twitter handle)

BOOM! Now all my tweeted links are automatically sorted. (Yours can be, too.)

Summary (and a few goodies)

Now you know how to use UTM tags, and you’re ready to keep track of all your social traffic.

Now, Buffer’s a great tool for automatically tagging links to be used on social . . . but what if you want to tag LOTS of links in social and outside of social? What if you’re running a huge campaign that encompasses blog posts, PPC ads, tweets, and emails?

That’s a lot of links to build one at a time.

9 Ways to Use Facebook Groups for Business

Are you participating in Facebook groups?

Want to start one to support your business?

Facebook groups help businesses promote products, support customers and much more.

In this article I’ll share nine ways Facebook groups can benefit your business.

Discover nine ways to use facebook groups for business.

#1: Sell Products

As an alternative or addition to selling products or digital goods on your website, you’re now able to sell in Facebook groups.

Once you create a For Sale group, you’ll see an option to “sell something” in your Facebook update.

The Sell Something feature is available to members of For Sale groups on Facebook.

If you don’t yet see this option in your Facebook group, take the opportunity to learn how selling works. Also nominate your group for this feature.

#2: Supplement Video Training Courses

If your business sells a video training course, give customers who purchase it access to a private Facebook group as part of the package. They can ask questions and get supplementary material, as well as forge a bond with other customers.

It’s a win-win situation for everyone. The customer can get help and additional resources for the product they purchased. Plus, it gives your business the opportunity to forge deeper connections with their customers and promote other courses and services.

#3: Promote Chats

Those who run a regular Twitter or online chat, or even have a running discussion on their Facebook page, may want to separate it from their business. They can do so through a Facebook group. It’s a great way to promote upcoming chats and guests. Plus, you can keep the conversations focused.

MediaChat uses their public group to share more information about chat guests, offer member deals and give shout-outs.

Create a Facebook group to promote upcoming guests on regular chats.

Remember to let participants know about your Facebook group and page (if applicable) during your chat. This way you can continue to build up your group and online presence.

#4: Establish Expertise

One of the easiest ways to use Facebook groups for business is to become a resource in your field. Create a group or contribute your knowledge to one that already exists.

For example, members of the Internet Marketing Super Friends group, numbering more than 13,000, pride themselves on helping other Internet marketers. Members can ask questions about SEO, get recommendations for designers and tools and more.

Facebook groups are great platforms to share your knowledge and get noticed.

The key thing about this type of group is to be a resource without self-promotion. (Most groups like this do not tolerate promoting content of any kind.)

Use Facebook groups to be helpful and give freely of yourself. You’ll be rewarded in spades as the word gets out from other members.

#5: Collect Feedback

Want to test out new ideas on some of your existing customers? One way to do that is to start a Facebook group to use as a think-tank for your business.

Create a secret Facebook group, invite some of your best customers and openly discuss new ideas you’re thinking about implementing in your business. Then gather feedback from them.

This type of group provides a way to build stronger relationships with customers, while helping business owners collect honest feedback on what their customers might like.

#6: Provide Customer Service

Every business needs to provide a way for customers to get help. While this could be through a contact form on your website or through your Facebook page, a secret Facebook group is another option.

The reason to start a secret group, instead of a closed or public one, is because secret groups can’t be located in search or accessed via URL. Instead, members have to be invited. This gives you better control over adding new members. Plus, it protects your business in case you have disgruntled customers. (They won’t be able to access the group unless you’ve invited them.)

Facebook groups are a good way to add value to your customer relationships.

If you want to make your customer service Facebook group easy to find, create a closed group. However, be sure to state whom this group is for in the description. This will give you better control over approving and rejecting new members.

#7: Support Event Speakers

If you’re putting on a live or online conference for your business, and you want to communicate with the speakers you have lined up, consider creating a Facebook group.

Convey insider details about the event and answer additional questions new speakers might have. Plus, use the group to share any templates and files with your speakers to reduce the number of requests you receive.

This also lets you give your speakers the opportunity to network and get to know each other and build rapport prior to the event.

#8: Test New Ideas With Peers

If you have a lot of ideas and want someone to help vet them, create a Facebook mastermind group. This will help you avoid wasting too much time or money on an idea that just won’t work.

You’ll want to keep mastermind groups small and private since you’re discussing ideas for your current (or next) business, so make this a secret group.

Use a Facebook group to connect with and learn from a select set of peers. Image: Shutterstock.

Once you create this group, use it as an online meeting place to discuss ideas and get help from a few of your well-respected peers. Remember to use some of the built-in features, such as file sharing and group search, to quickly recall meeting notes. Plus, if there’s a recording, you can post that as well.

#9: Communicate With Your Team

For those whose business communicates primarily on Facebook, create a Facebook group to bring your employees together.

Create a secret internal Facebook group for your company. Then invite your employees, virtual assistants or interns to join, and use it as a means to communicate with your team. The group can be a channel for introducing new teammates, sharing company updates and more.

If you do plan to use Facebook groups internally, be sure to have a social media policyready and have your employees agree to it first. This way, the private discussions among your employees don’t end up on public social media channels.

Facebook Groups Versus Facebook Pages

Facebook groups supplement your business and your fan page. So even if you create a Facebook group, you’ll still want a Facebook page for your business.

Anything you share on your business page shows up in the news feed for fans to see. When fans engage with your content, it increases your visibility to others in their network.

However, updates from Facebook groups only show up in the news feeds of members. When a member engages with the content in a group, it doesn’t show up in their friends’ news feeds.

Once you have a Facebook group and a page, make sure they work in tandem. Actively promote your group to your fans, if it’s something they’re able to join. This way, you can leverage your group and your page at the same time.

Over to You

There lots of ways to use Facebook groups for business. They serve to strengthen communication, connections and visibility, as well as help you grow your business. Groups also help you develop new ideas and relationships with your online community.

Whether you have your own group or participate in them, it’s valuable to know how Facebook groups can help your business so utilize them to their full potential.

What do you think? How have Facebook groups helped you? Do you run a Facebook group? In what ways are you using it? What kind of Facebook group do you plan to create? Please share your thoughts and experiences in the comments below.

Peer to peer photo from Shutterstock.

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23 Marketing Techniques That Cost You Time, Not Money

Here is the common situation of many startups. They have no money, but they have to do marketing.

What’s to be done? Instead of focusing on costly marketing methods, such startups must focus on low-budget marketing hacks.

The beauty of growth hacking is that it engages alternate methods of growth, methods which are sometimes lower cost.

Where marketing and engineering meet, growth hacking happens.

Obviously, growth hacking isn’t free. Strictly speaking none of the techniques in this article are “free.” Anytime you involve people, employees of the company, there will be payroll and associated costs.

But here’s why these methods are so powerful. They don’t require a huge marketing budget. All you need is some time, some savvy, and the kind of focused and driven perspective that smart marketing requires.

1. Get Links From Your Service Providers

To rank well, a website needs high-quality backlinks. Where do you get these backlinks? Obviously, buying links is not advised. What should you do?

If you’ve built partnerships with service providers or business partners, you have an instant source of untapped link potential. Reach out to these service providers and ask them to link to your website.

You gain a few nice links,and all it cost you was a few minutes of emailing.

2. Search For Unlinked Mentions

Another great way to get links and boost your site authority is to look for unlinked mentions of your brand or company name.

If you find such mentions in online publications or websites, email the site editor and ask them to provide a link. You might discover plenty of brand mentions all over the web.

A quick search and a few emails later — presto. Free backlinks. The good kind.

3. Host a Webinar

Free webinars introduce your brand and product to a wider audience. The more appealing the topic, the better you’ll attract interest.

Kissmetrics has been hosting webinars on a regular basis for a long time, with surprisingly powerful results.

Webinars take time. You’ve got to brainstorm topics, plan the webinar, and spread the word. The benefits, however, are top-notch.

4. Cross-promote

One explosive method of marketing that some companies use is cross-promotion. Cross promotion allows you to partner with related businesses who can market your services, in exchange for your marketing their services.

For example, if you are providing consulting services for online business owners, you may recommend that they use a certain web designer to create their website. The web designer is your cross promoting partner. This web designer works with business clients, and she points these clients your way for consulting services.

It’s a win-win, and apart from a signed document and an easy conversation, doesn’t require much work at all.

5. Be a Blog Commenter

The idea of marketing is to make your brand presence as well known as possible. One way of doing so is by commenting on blogs. Here’s how this works:

• Identify the top 5 blogs in your niche.
• Read and comment on the blogs on a regular basis.
• As people see your name and associated brand, they become familiar with it and perhaps even curious about it.

With every comment, you’re establishing a persistent brand presence. Just make sure you’re not making dumb comments. Customers’ perception of your brand is shaped by the quality of your comments.

6. Help a Reporter Out

Occasionally, you’re going to come across some newsworthy information in your niche or business. Sign up for Help a Reporter Out (HARO). It’s a free service that reporters often use to find stories. If you have a story you can help a reporter out, and gain publicity.

7. Create a Robust Google+ Presence

Google+ is one of the web’s foremost places for building brand exposure. Google uses your business information to form a web presence in Knowledge Graph boxes and wider indexation.

The better your Google+ profile, the better your brand will be featured and published organically across the web.

8. Network in Person

Don’t neglect the opportunity to market in person. You’ll meet great people in person whom you may never come across online.

Every person you meet is another marketing possibility. Obviously, you don’t want to go around shoving your business into people’s faces, but as the issue of work comes up in conversation, tell them about it.

The whole idea of networking is basically marketing. You get to introduce other people to your business live and in person.

9. Go Ahead and Run a Contest

As much as they’ve been sullied and scammed, online contests are still a great way to get low-cost marketing publicity. Giving away the cliche iPad, cash prizes, or other merchandise is an easy way to gain some viral potential and improve your brand’s image.

10. Build a Referral Program

The best forms of marketing are those that you can set up, turn on, and they grow — organically, automatically, and without too much effort. A referral program or affiliate program may not work for every business, but it’s worth a try.

Creating an affiliate program essentially turns your customers into a de facto marketing department. You don’t spend marketing money unless they first make a sale on your behalf.

11. Tweet Up a Storm In Your Niche

Twitter is a killer marketing platform. With its instant reach and massive output, Twitter can produce high levels of referral traffic, plenty of brand exposure, and nonstop social buzz.

What I suggest is following at least ten influencers in your niche, following their followers, retweeting their tweets, and mentioning them in comments. As you associate with their platform, you’ll begin to build your own platform.

12. Upsell Your Existing Customers

Too often, we view “marketing” solely as a method of gaining new customers. In reality, some of the best marketing happens with existing customers. Econsultancyand PredictiveIntent report that upselling is “20 times better than cross-selling.”

Source

Marketing back at your own customers is relatively easy and low-cost. The benefits are extraordinary.

13. Get Cozy With Niche Influencers

Within every industry are a group of power players. They control the conversation, shape the contours of the market, and reach a huge audience.

Make these people your friends. You don’t need to be schmoozy about it. You can be direct. Providing them with a product or partnering with them on a project are simple and mutually helpful ways to grow your brand and ride their wave of influence.

14. Claim a Hashtag

Hashtags are the billboards of the Internet. Since hashtags are now available on every major social platform, you can create a hashtag for your business and use iteverywhere you post.

A hashtag is a searchable and interactive extension of your brand, and has the potential to spread virally.

15. Get More Email Addresses

Growing your email list is one of the most enduring and effective methods of marketing. I suggest using Hello Bar as a simple and cost-effective way of harvesting more addresses.

16. Get More User-Generated Content

Everyone knows that content marketing is effective for inbound marketing. If you’re not careful, however, content marketing can be expensive. How can you gain more content without blowing your entire marketing budget?

The answer is user-generated content. Motivate your existing fans and customers to tell their own story and write content, and you’ll instantly open the floodgates to tons of fresh and engaging content that your audience will love. Your fans will be creating and sharing content for you.

17. Talk to Your Fans

Customers and fans love to be loved. The way you show that love is by retweeting, favoriting tweets, liking the comments, and sharing their status. Don’t simply expect that your social media presence is going to work for you. You have to work for it, by talking to your fans.

They will return the favor, and engage at a deeper level.

18. Produce High-Quality Press Releases

Press releases have past their heyday as an SEO tool, but they still hold sway in marketing. If you use a source like PRWeb, you’ll be out a few hundred bucks anytime you pop out a press release.

A source like PRLog.org, however, is free of charge. The amount of syndication you get may not be as high quality, but it’s something. And, hey, it’s something for nothing.

Just be sure to write very high-quality releases, and nofollow any links back to your website.

19. Hack Craigslist

Craigslist is the 59th most popular website in the world. Airbnb, valued at 24 billion, used Craigslist to skyrocket its growth. You can use Craigslist, too. Try using Craigslist’s geographic focus to target specific areas and markets.

Make sure that you’re complying with the site’s terms of service. Use Craigslist in the way that it was intended. Violators will be banned from the site.

20. Blog

I can’t create list of marketing techniques without mentioning blogging. A business blog is an indispensable strategy for online marketing. Use it, work at it, and make it work for you.

If you’re frustrated with the current condition of your business blog, read these 35 tips that will make it better. If you’re struggling with traffic, read this post.

21. Guest blog

If blogging is awesome, then guest blogging is doubly awesome. When you post an article on another blog, you are instantly gaining that blog’s audience. The cost of guest blogging is free, less the time you spend. Create a killer article, appeal to the blog’s audience, and you may be invited back to contribute more.

I’ve used guest blogging with incredible success. My 300-and-counting guest blogs are still paying me back in terms of referral traffic, leads, and customers.

22. Create a LinkedIn Group

LinkedIn is free, and yet it gives you incredible marketing opportunities. Many professionals use LinkedIn as static social media tool — a place to put up their resume, and not much else.

LinkedIn is so much more than an online resume. I’ve used LinkedIn to publish content, connect with powerful people, and build a marketing group with thousands of members.

All of this cost me zero dollars and zero cents, but the marketing upside has been incredible.

23. Give Free Help to Others

If you make marketing all about you and your business, you’re going to be frustrated and unfulfilled. Try giving to others, free of charge.

Obviously, you’re not a charity; you’re a business. But why not give away a product, an hour of your time, or a membership for a customer who can’t afford your services?

Some of the best business opportunities I’ve had were consulting gigs with customers who couldn’t pay. These opportunities have been beneficial in ways that I couldn’t have predicted.

Even today, I give away virtually all of my content without charge. Doing so is fulfilling for me personally, and it provides an opportunity for improved marketing.

Conclusion

Marketing doesn’t have to break your bank, blow your budget, or cost you thousands of dollars. Like I mentioned in the beginning of this article, marketing can require nothing more than the investment of time.

Chances are, you can increase your marketing presence today by implementing one of these methods. Pick one and run with it.

What is your favorite no-cost marketing technique?