Add UTM tags to the incoming campaign links you control, such as a newsletter button or a partner’s promotional link to your website. Use a shared naming sheet before anyone builds the links. Keep links between pages on your own website untagged, and measure those interactions with events when you need them.
That gives your team two separate questions to answer: which outside placement brought someone in, and what they did after arriving. A campaign link register is a small spreadsheet that keeps those questions from getting mixed together.
The hero photo is AI-generated and depicts a fictional fitness-studio owner, not a client or project.
Start with the placement, then name the link
UTM parameters are labels added to a destination URL. Google Analytics uses them to identify referred campaign traffic. Its documentation describes source, medium, campaign, campaign ID, and source platform. Values are case-sensitive. studio_newsletter and Studio_Newsletter are different values. Google’s campaign URL guide explains the fields and naming rules.
Our recommendation is to approve a small vocabulary in advance. Use lowercase, a consistent separator, and names someone else can understand next month. Keep the campaign name stable across its placements; let source and content explain the differences.
For example, use email consistently for the medium of newsletter links. Do not switch among email, e-mail, and newsletter because three people built three links. Choose a new campaign name when you are running a different initiative, rather than renaming the same initiative halfway through.
Example: one workshop, three links
Hypothetical example, not a Branding Bull client project: an independent fitness studio is promoting a beginner workshop in November 2026. It has a newsletter, a neighborhood partner willing to include a link, and a schedule button on its own website.
The team agrees on the campaign name beginner_workshop_2026_11 and a stable campaign ID, bw_2026_11.
For the studio newsletter’s main button, the register records:
- Source (
utm_source):studio_newsletter - Medium (
utm_medium):email - Campaign (
utm_campaign):beginner_workshop_2026_11 - Campaign ID (
utm_id):bw_2026_11 - Content (
utm_content):main_button - Source platform (
utm_source_platform): the email platform actually sending the message
The partner newsletter uses the same campaign name and ID, with source neighborhood_partner, medium email, and content text_link. Its source-platform value reflects the partner’s actual sending platform.
Both are incoming promotional links. The different sources let the team distinguish the placements without pretending they are different campaigns. The content labels describe the link positions, so another button in the same message could have a different content value.
The schedule button inside the studio’s own website stays untagged. It describes an action after arrival, rather than an outside source of traffic.
Keep internal buttons out of the campaign vocabulary
We recommend leaving UTM parameters off your homepage banners, navigation, service-page buttons, and other links within your website. Otherwise, a label such as utm_source=homepage mixes an on-site placement into the vocabulary you meant to use for incoming campaigns.
If the business question is “Did visitors click the workshop’s schedule button?”, ask your developer or tracking specialist to configure that interaction as an event and test it. Google’s event setup guide explains how events measure actions such as link clicks and how configured events can be checked in Realtime or DebugView. Do not assume every internal button is measured automatically.
A schedule click still needs its own definition. It means the button was clicked; a confirmed registration requires evidence from the booking process. For the later reporting step, our guide to email campaign reporting beyond opens separates traffic, completed actions, and verified outcomes.
Copy this link register before launch
Make one row per placement, even when several rows lead to the same page. Use these columns in a spreadsheet:
- Placement and owner: where the link will appear and who will insert it.
- Destination: the intended page before campaign parameters are added.
- Campaign fields: source, medium, campaign, campaign ID, source platform, and content where relevant.
- Final tagged URL: the approved link copied from the builder or sending platform.
- Tracking owner: which tool or person adds the tags.
- Test record: date, tester, final destination, fields observed, and any unresolved issue.
Do not mark a row ready just because the URL has been built. Give it a status such as “needs link,” “needs test,” or “ready,” based on the work actually completed. Keep the approved link in the register so a collaborator can copy it instead of rebuilding it from memory.
Check the sending platform before adding anything manually. It may already supply campaign tags. For integrated advertising accounts, Google recommends using the integration’s auto-tagging; manual and automatic tagging have specific interactions. It also recommends supplying all relevant UTM fields, especially source, medium, campaign, campaign ID, and source platform. Follow the documented setup rather than replacing automatic tags with this newsletter example. Google’s manual and auto-tagging guide explains those differences.
Test the link people will actually receive
Send yourself the test email or open the partner’s actual preview. On a phone, follow the link through any redirect to the final page. Check that it opens the intended workshop, that the approved campaign values survive, and that the next action works.
Then have the tracking owner confirm collection in the configured analytics setup. A correctly spelled URL alone does not verify tracking. Record test activity so it can be excluded from the campaign’s results.
Use campaign and placement labels, never recipient names, email addresses, phone numbers, or personal details. Google explicitly prohibits personally identifiable information in campaign parameters. Its privacy guidance also warns that information in page URLs can reach Analytics. Keep customer details in the appropriate business system.
If you want help checking your register against the tracking already installed, bring one planned campaign and its destination page to a conversation about Branding Bull’s Analytics & Conversion Tracking service. A focused review can establish what is collected, what each action means, and what still needs testing before launch.
