GOV.UK campaign tagging (UTM usage)
This page suggests how government organisations should use Google Analytics (GA) tracking parameters when promoting GOV.UK content on other websites or through social media or advertising campaigns.
Why should you use UTM parameters?
Campaign tagging involves adding tags to URLs shared on other websites or in adverts with GA standard tracking parameters such as utm_campaign and utm_source.
GA will use these parameters when trying to understand the attribution of a given session or event. Metrics around user activity and behaviour can then be connected to those tags so that we can assess the success or utility of different campaigns.
These parameters overwrite Google’s default attribution calculations, so should be used carefully and only when required.
Other, non-Google, tracking schema are available, but GA will not treat them in the same way and these alternative parameters could interfere with our standard page tracking.
Note that campaign tagging should not be used on internal links within GOV.UK. This will break the default referrer and attribution tracking.
Tagging schema
Some standardisation in tagging schemas helps make the data in GA more usable and mitigates against high cardinality. In our GOV.UK data you can see many examples of missing or duplicate campaign parameters, and other examples where over-complex or partial tagging will make subsequent analysis more complex.
Google provides a URL builder for campaigns. Using this tool will help ensure fewer errors when contructing URLs with UTM parameters.
General rules
- Do not use spaces or special characters in the parameters. Underscores are fine, as are hyphens, though we’ve been caught out in the past by stray en-dashes, em-dashes and smart quotes, so be careful using these symbols
- Use lowercase. Parameters are case sensitive; we must stick to exactly these formats or they will be reported on separately
utm_campaign
The utm_campaign provides the name of the campaign being run.
This should be consistent across all campaign elements - a paid-for advert and an unpaid social media post that are both part of the same campaign should have the same utm_campaign parameter value.
utm_medium
The utm_medium indicates the channel this link was shared on, which should be similar to the standard GA ‘medium’ dimension values.
Common examples include:
utm_medium=organic- unpaid links from search enginesutm_medium=referral- links on other websitesutm_medium=social- posts on owned social media channels, whether free or paid forutm_medium=cpc- paid searchutm_medium=cre- content recommendation enginesutm_medium=email- links in emailsutm_medium=affiliate- partnership promotions
utm_source
The source of the traffic, which should be similar to the standard GA ‘source’ dimension values.
Examples might include:
utm_source=googleutm_source=facebookutm_source=april_newsletter
utm_content
We’ve used utm_content for various, and sometimes mixed purposes, covering creative variation, ad format/position, and audience.
This parameter value can be used to distinguish between adverts or posts that are part of the same campaign (and so might otherwise have identical values in the campaign, medium, and source UTM parameters above).
For example:
utm_content=creative1utm_content=creative2_320x50utm_content=creative3_970x250_hard-working-familiesutm_content=tweet52utm_content=post_130515
utm_term
Paid search will use this parameter to indicate the search term and the level of match. This should be populated automatically.