Why so much of it says "direct"
When you tap a link, your browser usually tells the next site which page you came from.
That note is called the referrer, and it is most of what a stats tool has to go on.
Plenty of places never write it:
- A link tapped inside a chat app like WhatsApp.
- Most email apps, so your own newsletter looks like it sent nobody.
- A QR code, a PDF, or a link somebody copied and pasted into a message.
- Some phone apps that open links in their own built-in browser.
With an audience that lives on its phones, that pile can be most of what you get.
What a tag changes
A UTM tag writes the answer into the link itself.
The page you link to reads it on arrival, so it no longer matters whether the app passed anything along.
Google Analytics reads the tags with no setup at all.
Our free UTM link builder explains the three tags and keeps your naming tidy.
This article is about the part after that: what to tag, and how to read the results.
One launch, tagged
Say you are launching a recipe e-book on Monday.
The book's page is the same everywhere, and only the tag on the end changes:
- Under the video: ?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=description&utm_campaign=ebook
- In the pinned comment: ?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=pinned-comment&utm_campaign=ebook
- In your Instagram bio: ?utm_source=instagram&utm_medium=bio&utm_campaign=ebook
- In Thursday's newsletter: ?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ebook
Same book, four doors.
A week later one report lays the whole launch out side by side, and you can finally say "the pinned comment sent more people than the description" and know it is true.
Where to read it
In Google Analytics, open Reports and find Traffic acquisition under Acquisition.
The table starts out grouped by channel, which is too coarse for this.
Change its first column to Session source / medium to see every place, or to Session campaign to see one launch on its own.
If your Analytics is set to another language, the names are translated and the places are the same.
Three ways the numbers fool you
Somebody copies the link from your newsletter and posts it in a Facebook group.
Every visit from that group now says newsletter.
You cannot stop it, so when one source jumps for no reason, this is usually the reason.
Ad blockers and some privacy settings stop the counting altogether, tag or no tag.
Read the numbers as a comparison between your own links, not as a head count.
And a tag only helps on a page whose stats you can see.
The site the link points to is the one that reads the tags, so tagging a link to somebody else's shop just tidies up their report.
How much to tag
Not everything.
Tag the three or four places you post every week, use one campaign name per launch, and stop there.
A spreadsheet of sixty tagged links is a second job, and nobody pays you for it.