UTM convention
Tracking you will still understand in two years.
Our best-practice guideline for clean, logical and traceable marketing tracking – with fixed rules for every UTM parameter and examples for email, social media, video and Meta Ads.
Why we deliberately set up tracking differently
Don’t just count clicks – understand contacts.
When people talk about tracking, they usually mean anonymous numbers: clicks, page views, conversion rates. These numbers matter – they show trends and give hints about performance. For RedFoX Business Solutions, though, they are only the surface.
We aim deeper: we want to understand how a specific person came into contact with a marketing activity – through which channel, which platform, in which campaign context and through which specific element.
That is why we rely on contact-based internet campaign contact tracking that connects marketing data directly with the CRM. It follows proven best practices as recommended by Google, HubSpot and other leading marketing and CRM systems.
Level 01
UTM parameters
Describe the context of a click: channel, source, campaign, content.
Level 02
Fields in the CRM
Always show a contact’s most recent known touchpoint – they are overwritten with every new entry.
Level 03
Notes & timeline
Record the chronological history: a note with date and tracking context for every entry.
From click to contact
One link – two goals: analytics and CRM.
Most people only use UTM parameters for their analytics tool. We go one step further: the same values travel through hidden form fields straight into the contact record in the CRM. So you don’t just see how many visits a campaign brought – you see who came through it.
1
The link
Every link in an email, post, video or ad carries UTM parameters according to this convention.
2
The analytics
Google Analytics, Matomo or RedFoX Analytics show channel, source, campaign and content – anonymous and aggregated.
3
The form
When someone signs up, hidden fields read the parameters from the address and send them along.
4
The contact in the CRM
Fields show the most recent touchpoint, a dated note keeps the full history.
Few people do this
For every sign-up and every purchase you know which channel, which campaign and which button triggered it. Not estimated, not extrapolated – per contact.
The central idea
Three logics – cleanly separated.
The most important rule: marketing, platform and click are never mixed. That prevents confusion of meaning and keeps data readable even years later.
Marketing logic
What kind of activity?
utm_medium – the channel, never a platform. Platform logic
Where was it shown?
utm_source – the specific origin. Click logic
What exactly was clicked?
utm_content – the specific click object. The fixed hierarchy
Channel → Source → Campaign → Content.
Channel
utm_medium
→
Source
utm_source
→
Campaign
utm_campaign
→
Content
utm_content
→
Audience
utm_term optional
+
Placement
placement optional The parameters in detail
Which value goes where?
utm_medium
The channel
Through which marketing channel did the contact come?
The overarching marketing category. Deliberately not a platform – otherwise campaigns can no longer be compared.
emailorganic_socialpaid_socialorganic_videopaid_search
These values match the default channel groups of Google Analytics 4.
utm_source
The source
Where exactly did the click come from?
Always specific – never generic. For emails that means never
utm_source=email and no doubled “email / email” in channel and source. | Channel | Typical sources |
|---|---|
newsletter one-off send · automation email in an automation · drip email series · customer_mailing email to customers | |
| Organic social media | instagram · facebook · linkedin · tiktok · pinterest · youtube |
| Meta Ads | fb · ig · msg · an – set by Meta itself via {{site_source_name}} |
| Video | youtube · vimeo · tiktok |
| Search ads | google · bing |
Facebook & Instagram – which spelling? For organic links we write them out:
facebook, instagram. In Meta ads we keep the short codes Meta inserts itself: fb, ig. Never hard-code facebook into an ad – with automatic placements the same ad runs on both platforms, and only the placeholder knows where the click really happened. Paid and organic are separated by utm_medium anyway. utm_campaign
The campaign
Why does this activity exist?
The strategic frame. All emails, posts and links of one initiative get the same campaign name – that is the only way to analyse them together later.
advent_calendarfreebie_onboardingcourse_launch_q1community_invite
Proven for time-limited initiatives:
phase_offer_year_month, e.g. invite_webinar_2026_10. utm_content
The content
What exactly was clicked?
Always the specific click object – with descriptive names, never technical IDs. That keeps CRM entries and reports readable for humans.
| Channel | Structure | Example |
|---|---|---|
| email + click purpose | email_welcome_cta_view_course | |
| Social media | the post | reel_morning_routine |
| Video | the video | onboarding_tips_01 |
| Ad | name of the ad | {{ad.name}} in Meta |
| Bio link | may stay empty | or e.g. profile |
A link that sits permanently in a bio or profile does not belong to a single post. There,
utm_content may stay empty – placement=bio already says it all. utm_term
Audience / keyword
Is there real targeting?
Only use it when there really is targeting: keywords in Google Ads or ad sets in social ads. For organic activities the field stays empty.
placement
The placement
Where exactly was the link?
Our additional parameter – not an official UTM standard, but a useful addition. Analytics tools ignore it or keep it in the address, so it never does any harm.
| Channel | Values |
|---|---|
email_button default · email_link text link · email_button_top / email_button_bottom only if the same button appears twice in the email · email_link_ps text link in the P.S. | |
| Social media | bio · feed · reels · story · comment |
| Video | description · endcard · pinned_comment · channel_description |
| Meta Ads | {{placement}}, e.g. Facebook_Mobile_Feed |
Spelling
Five rules for stable reports.
Everything lowercase. Analytics tools treat
Newsletter and newsletter differently – or lowercase everything anyway and mix up data in the process.
Underscore instead of spaces.
course_launch_q1, not “Course Launch Q1”.
No accents or special characters. Write
ae, oe, ue, ss instead of umlauts – and never + % & # ? in names that end up in links.
Descriptive, not technical.
email_welcome_cta_view_course instead of m_1503_a.
Consistent across all channels. Values you have defined are reused, not reinvented.
Examples
What it looks like in practice.
Email marketing
- Channel
email- Source
automation- Campaign
freebie_onboarding- Content
email_welcome_cta_view_course- Placement
email_button
https://example.com/course/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=automation&utm_campaign=freebie_onboarding&utm_content=email_welcome_cta_view_course&placement=email_button
Meta Ads dynamic
- Source
{{site_source_name}}→ fb / ig- Channel
paid_social- Campaign
{{campaign.name}}- Audience
{{adset.name}}- Content
{{ad.name}}- Placement
{{placement}}
Two traps: the “URL parameters” field must not start with
?, otherwise the first parameter silently gets lost. And campaign, ad set and ad names without + % & # ? – Meta puts them into the link raw and freezes them on publishing. LinkedIn advent calendar
- Channel
organic_social- Source
linkedin- Campaign
advent_calendar- Content
day_01…day_24
Every single day can be analysed cleanly.
YouTube video
- Channel
organic_video- Source
youtube- Campaign
tips_basics- Content
- the specific video, e.g.
onboarding_tips_01 - Placement
descriptionorendcard
Link in the Instagram bio
- Channel
organic_social- Source
instagram- Campaign
profileor the current initiative- Content
- empty
- Placement
bio
What gets no UTMs
Internal links from one of your pages to another – UTMs would overwrite the original source. Measure those clicks as events instead.
Short links in emails – email links go straight to the target page; redirects don’t always pass parameters on.
In forms and in the CRM
How the values reach the contact.
A few hidden fields in the sign-up form are enough. They read the parameters from the address and pass them to your CRM on submit.
utm_mediumChannelutm_sourceSourceutm_campaignCampaignutm_contentContentutm_termAudienceplacementPlacementFields = latest touchpoint
Overwrite with every entry
The CRM fields always show what the contact came through last. In most form tools a placeholder reads the value from the address, e.g.
{get.utm_source} in Fluent Forms. Note = history
Append with every entry
In addition, a note with the date and the same values. Without it, a contact who comes back loses their original source.
Optional: contact ID in emails. Email systems can insert an ID of the recipient into links when sending – for one-click sign-ups or a live chat that recognises visitors, for example. It belongs in emails only, never in public channels, and never in analytics services that don’t allow personal data.
The tool for it
RedFoX UTM Link Builder for WordPress
Our plugin applies this convention automatically – no typos, no looking things up.
- Pick the target from your pages, channel and source from fixed lists
- Create and manage campaigns, every link is saved to the history
- Lowercase, underscores, no special characters – automatically
- Link checker finds mistakes in existing links
- Channels and values can be adapted to your own convention
Guiding principles
Measuring is good. Understanding is better.
We consistently separate marketing, platform and click logic.
We use specific, descriptive values.
We write everything lowercase and consistently.
We track at contact level, not just anonymously.
We build systems that stay understandable in the long run.