UTM tags: a practical guide

UTM tags are parameters you add to a link so your analytics knows which campaign brought a visitor. Three are enough for most sites.

https://example.com/offer?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2026-10-autumn

Parameter	Answers	Examples
utm_source	Who sent the visitor	newsletter, linkedin, google, partner-site
utm_medium	Through what kind of channel	email, social, cpc, referral
utm_campaign	For which campaign	2026-10-autumn, black-friday, launch-v2

A naming scheme that stays tidy

• Lower case only. Statsdot stores tags in lower case, but other tools do not, and mixed spelling splits your numbers.
• Hyphens, no spaces. black-friday, not Black Friday.
• Dates in campaign names. 2026-10-autumn sorts well and never repeats.
• A fixed list of mediums. Agree on five or six (email, social, cpc, referral, affiliate) and stick to them.
• One spreadsheet. Keep a list of every tagged link you published.

Mistakes to avoid

• Tagging internal links. UTM tags on links inside your own site overwrite the real source of the visit.
• Forgetting the medium. A source without a medium is hard to group later.
• Different tags for the same thing. fb, facebook and meta become three sources.

Where to see them

In Statsdot, the Sources panel has tabs for UTM source, medium and campaign. Click any value to filter the whole dashboard and see which pages those visitors read and which goals they reached. Only the first page of a visit carries the tags, so a visitor is counted once per campaign. More in Campaigns and UTM tags.